16-january-1978 Van Der Graaf Generator
DATE: Monday, 16th, January, 1978
LOCATION: 90 Wardour Street
MAIN ACT: Van Der Graaf Generator
BAND MEMBERS : Peter Hammill (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Guy Evans (drums), Nic Potter (bass), Graham Smith (violin), Charles Dickie (cello, keyboards)
Van Der Graaf Generator played two nights at the Marquee club in January 1978 to record the live album "Vital". The first night only included Peter Hammill (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Guy Evans (drums), Nic Potter (bass) from the former band's lineups.
Memorabilia on this night
Melody Maker ad
Audio recordings on this night
Van Der Graaf Generator - Vital
Press on this night
Vital Magic - Sounds , 1978
Author: John Gill
"Unashamedly betraying my partisan affections, "Vital" really is. The first time VDG(G) gropped me live was at a recent Marquee gig (where this was recorded). Large halls have swallowed them whole but the intimacy (a pre-requisite, I feel, for Hammill's music) and pure feeling was stupendous. They fed off the audience, and vice-versa, creating at times pure magic. Vital magic.
There are five newies on the album and one -'Ship of Fools' (no relation)- opens the double set. It seems an unwise choice of opener; a mid-range VDG stormer with no studio original looking over its shoulder to imbue in it with the live variance that partly justifies any live album. Repeated playing fail to reveal any really commendable facets in it.
'Still Life' and 'Last Frame' are as bitter and vitriolic as ever, both shot through with an overloading live tension that is strained to snapping point by Graham Smith's scraping violin.
Side two reopens with a newie, too; 'Mirror Images', Goldbluffian melancholia with bold bass and light flute and violin. For the next one, 'Medley', I lie on the floor and foam at the mouth. It takes in two parts pf 'Plague of Lighthousekeepers' ('Eyewitness' and 'Clot Thickens'- An Outbreak Of Lighthousekeepers?) and 'Sleepwalkers'. The former is, naturally, unforgettably sublime, the latter quircky tea-dance dementia, complete with Jackson's nuttily dapper sax.
A devastating version of 'Pioneers Over C' opens side three; eerle, menancing and timeless.
'Sci-Finance', third in the quintet of new songs, bows open with lilting classical violin and ponderous bass before kicking into a morse rocker that swings in and out of sly rhythm and inexorable accelerating riffs a la 'Cog'.
Three down, one to go. Side four opens with 'Door', a discussion on the existence of A Door played out over a grunging, phased HM workout harried by violin and warbling synthesiser. I'm not too sure about their forays into the area of straight boogying. 'Urban', the final newie, opens with tapping percussion and dipping bass, slowly building into a crazily-timed surging rocker; strutting guitar (from the Hermit himself) and violin with Jackson syncopating overhead and finally joining the march. 'Urban' sandwiches a segment of 'Killer' (the best bit, with the frantic diminishing riff and Jackson's screaming sax line taken by himself and Smith). Their parting shot is 'Nadir's Big Chance'.
'Vital' captures the (affected) dark soul of VDG, laying past and present musical nightmares on to vinyl. 'Ship of Fools' is something of an ainsuspicious opener, but the rest of 'Vital' comes storming out of the speakers. Straight at you. Their movement towards hard rocking has supplied an energy that gives new force to Hammill's alien therapy sessions, and if this isn't the dervish soul of VDG forced struggling on to record, I'll eat both of my copies of 'Pawn Hearts'.
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