A stunningly wonderous Hanley-Dynamik corp audience capture. Keyboard tends to dominate for most of the gig. Bass is a little too low for my aged ears and Dave is close and Rob distant. Tim is strangely missing in parts of the mix on this recording. Orpheo makes his presence felt but there is a unique sort of 60s Joe Meek feel to the whole thing.
A great "STSR" kicks things off with some good guitar and swirly synth noises. "PJ" is a little overlong but well presented and "Fall Sound" has a nice loose feel about it with howling guitar and synth noises pervading. There's a sort of a languid half inebriated feel to the whole thing as the band just about holds the line. I blame the sea air.
Abandoned fret worrying from Brother Presley dominates and excellent "My Door" which has more of a drive as the band picks up the pace. Slight microphone problems on "Sparta" coupled with contrapuntal singing from MES are soon sorted to give us wall of sound chant madness. Complete with that wonderous laminal bit in the middle. The sound of terraces continues with more 60s nostalgia from the Move. Not sure this incarnation of the band should be playing this but tonight it seems to make sense.
Short intermission leads to a fine version of "TWS" with EP showing great presence.
Mark says "Just do Reformation and lets call it a day, yeah?". Odd variation on the usual perfomance from the tour - lots of vocal ad-lib and feels sort of rushed. Microphones are overblown in places and the band is pushing it very hard. There is a point where the ghosts of Amon Duul around the time of "Carnival in Babylon" are seriously exorcised whilst Mark does this amazing "this is what it sow-ow-ow-ow ounds like" bit. Hard noise as the audience gets the microphone and the band rams an intense wall of noise into the ether. Blisteringly intense.
Another intermission wherein someone called Mark Howard gets a mention - I wonder who that could be?(!) White Lightning gets a good fallabilly kick and has the required amount of frug to elicit a serious head shake from J Travolta & Olive from "On the Buses" John.
My inside source tells me that the Heineken was groovy and that MES was not happy with sound engineers.