Straight-life Sunday evenings: a few hours of torpor, regret at what you ought to have achieved over the weekend and looming dread at the thought of the week that lies ahead. Who wouldn’t want a bit of escapism? Downton Abbey and Call The Midwife just aren’t going to cut it. Thankfully, two of the finest escape artists around – Ozric Tentacles and Gong – are on hand to temporarily transport us to another dimension. Set controls for the heart of the sun…
First up tonight on a bill that rotates each evening of the tour are Ozric Tentacles. You can tell a lot about a band from their origins, and Ozrics came together at the Stonehenge Free Festival in 1983. Ed Wynne may be the only surviving original member, but that hippy/crusty vibe still clings to them like joss-stick fug – not least because their keyboard player is called Silas Neptune (Mr and Mrs Neptune must be very proud), Glastonbury Green Fields couture is very much the order of the day onstage, and many members of the audience look as though they may well have once woken up in a hedge after an earnest if chemically induced attempt to converse with it the previous evening.
Unlike some of their late-80s/early-90s free festival peers, Ozrics’ path to enlightenment isn’t paved with repetitive beats and dayglo accessories. Instead, it’s a kaleidoscopic fusion of metal guitar licks, funk/jazz basslines, spacey synths, a hint of echoey dub and (courtesy of Saskia Maxwell) some flute: a neat musical metaphor for an ethos that celebrates communality while also respecting individuality, all set against psychedelic backdrop projections of swirling Buddhas, apes and mushrooms. “I’m sorry if this is too weird,” Wynne apologises – needlessly, because weird is exactly what we’ve come for.
And then it’s Gong: formed in Paris in 1967 and resident in an abandoned hunting lodge in the early years of their existence (see comment on origins above). Shortly before founding father Daevid Allen died in 2015, he elected Kavus Torabi as band leader. For Torabi, a veteran of Gong-inspired acts such as Cardiacs, The Monsoon Bassoon and Guapo, the appointment made perfect sense. And so it’s the new chief custodian of the Gong brand who invites us to “go on a journey inwards and outwards – but that’s the same thing, right?”
Longest-serving member Fabio Golfetti plugs away with quiet efficiency on guitar stage left, alongside bassist Dave Sturt, who, with his beanie and shades, is a dead ringer for Leon, Jean Reno’s hitman with a heart. Ched Nettles is a phenomenon behind the drumkit, and saxophonist Ian East supplies some very welcome freak-rock Fun House sax stage right.
But it’s Torabi who commands the attention – his skintight shirt half-unbuttoned, his silhouetted barnet one of the most instantly recognisable in the business (think Birthday Party-era Nick Cave with his fingers stuck in a socket). Gong’s more flamboyant material allows him greater performative freedom than that of The Utopia Strong, his electronic supergroup with snooker legend Steve Davis and Coil’s Michael J. York, and it’s an opportunity he seizes with relish, every inch the rock star.
They start strong with Beatles fever dream My Guitar Is A Spaceship, one of four tracks to be taken from latest album Unending Ascending – a mere nostalgia act they are not – and Rejoice! is another early highlight. Ozrics flautist Maxwell appears to perform some ethereal semaphore, and the band launch into a fine rendition of psych classic Master Builder – albeit a shorter one than the hour-long version that Gong devotees and collaborators Acid Mothers Temple have been known to play. One enthused punter, apparently coming up on something rather stronger than cooking lager, literally howls his approval. Choose Your Goddess returns us to the realm of relatively earthly rock, before an encore of Insert Yr Own Prophecy brings the evening to its final destination.
Gong have always stood apart from their prog contemporaries by virtue of valuing spontaneity, imagination and absurdity over virtuosity, discipline and seriousness, and in Torabi’s hands they’ll evidently continue to do so. At Glastonbury, after several days and nights of overindulgence and sleep deprivation, minds are like wax – easily melted. That Gong and fellow travellers Ozric Tentacles can do it on a miserable Sunday night in March is testament to their formidable lysergic powers.
Gong / Ozric Tentacles, The Globe, Cardiff, Sun 10 Mar
words BEN WOOLHEAD photos CHLOE JACKSON-NOTT