THE UNION CHAPEL CONCERT (WITH GUY EVANS)

This 1997 live album is a fruit of minds of Guy Evans and Peter Hammill. A sort of experimental and, in some moments, even adventurous recording. From the side of Guy Evans there were three drummers from his band -- Mat Fraser, Patou Soult and Giles Perrin (the latter also played guitar), from the side of Peter Hammill -- Manny Elias (drums) and Stuart Gordon (violin), with whom he worked by those times, and two guests -- Hugh Banton and David Jackson. With only a day of rehearsals, they played a concert in a church, a concert, sometimes looking like an exhibition of new technology in musical instruments. Evans and his collaborators from his band played so-called blue drums. Jackson, besides saxes and flutes, introduced a soundbeam, a mixture of a musical instrument and a physical tool; this tool produces a sound, reflecting the movements of a live body (more information about the soundbeam is in Jackson's solo album "Fractal Bridge", 1996). Jackson, Gordon and Banton played each a solo number (Jackson on the mentioned soundbeam, Gordon on violin and Banton, naturally, on a church organ), and in a couple of other numbers. Evans and Hammill presented in all tracks except for the solo ones, introducing their own compositions, partly Evans', partly from their common album "Spur of the Moment", but mostly Hammill's ones. One piece, "Lemmings", featured the four VdGG members (Evans, Hammill, Banton, Jackson) alone on the stage (with no other musicians at that moment). "Traintime", the final track, featured all the musicians together. Notice that Jackson and Banton appeared on the stage surprisingly (for the crowd, of course). In general, it was rather strange, but, nevertheless, interesting performance, with wild squeaks of Hammill's guitar, very aggressive but not too much dynamic. The result was two discs, each one about an hour of length, sometimes tiring the listener by both too long versions of familiar songs and by poor sound of recording, but not keeping him indifferent.

This was a one-off event, the circumstances of which are explained by Guy Evans in the liner notes. Some very experimental (and instrumental) pieces by Hammill and Evans as a duo (live versions of tracks from their joined effort album "Spur of the Moment"), solo performances of David Jackson and Hugh Banton (both about 10 minutes long) as well as one short violin solo by Stuart Gordon and eight songs by Hammill/VdGG in various line-ups, one of them being the classic line-up of VdGG for a wild version of "Lemmings". The sound quality is only so-so, which is no wonder since the whole event was organized under pressure of time, as the very informative and well-written liner notes explain. A truly entertaining and interesting evening, with ups and downs, the highlights being the tracks where Hammill actually sings and the organ solo of Banton. Jackson's solo is a bit too long, in my opinion. Since sound quality never was an issue with me, I'll give this effort 4 stars.