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Nick Morgan and crew
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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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ROBYN HITCHCOCK AND HIS FRIENDS:
DIAPHANOUSLY YOURS
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, September
4th 2009 |
| It’s
Pestival time
at the Southbank and we’re celebrating “insects
in art, and the art of being an insect”. Actually
it’s more than that: “Pestival is a
mobile arts festival examining insect-human interactivity
in bioscience, through paradigms of contemporary
art, cinema, music and comedy as well as direct
scientific demonstration and educational projects”.
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| Amidst
a variety of installations, films, workshops and
lectures is Robyn
Hitchcock and an unlikely assembly
of fellow bug lovers. “I've always liked the
look of insects,” said Hitchcock in a pre-gig
interview. “They are echoed in the design
of helicopters, planes, small cars, and even sailing
boats, so maybe that's why they--and arachnids like
the tarantula--appear from time to time in my songs.”
And before you tread on that pesky ant, or wash
that hairy old spider down the bathroom plug-hole,
remember Hitchcock’s prescient observation
from the stage (shortly after he had revealed, to
much astonishment, that Brian Ferry is an insect
– “just look at his forehead”),
“One of the things we have in common with
insects is that we exist”. |
| Hitchcock
kicked off the evening solo with the bee-filled
‘Agony of pleasure’ notable for his
rhyming of ‘digesting’ with ‘intestine’
, followed by ‘Dragonfly’, written especially
for the performance, and performed with Blur guitarist
Graham Coxon, and Jenny Adejayan on cello. It’s
one of those evenings where people come and go from
the stage all night; just the right side of shambolic,
surprisingly well rehearsed, with a very forgiving
audience. In addition to Hitchcock’s UK band
(Adejayan, with Paul Noble on bass and Rob Ellis
on drums) there’s sound sculptor Max
Eastley (who joins for the song ‘Insect
Mother) and organist and trumpeter Terry
Edwards who joins the whole band for ‘Red
Locust frenzy’. Musical polymath and Dorian
Gray look-alike Green Gartside along with journalist,
blogger and keyboard player Rhodri
Marsden (better known perhaps as Scritti
Politti), take the stage to perform three songs:
‘The human fly’, ‘Where fat lies
ants follow’ and the Scritti top ten UK hit
‘Wood beez’. |
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| They’re
followed by the Incredible String Band’s Mike
Heron, who along with his daughter Georgia
Seddon, and the assembled multitude, sing the
ISB’s ‘Cousin caterpillar’, and
‘A cellular song’ (a tribute to the
amoeba); the latter from their masterpiece of 1960s
hippy self-indulgence, The Hangman’s Beautiful
Daughter. ‘I used to levitate to these songs
back in the 1960s’ said Hitchcock. He probably
still does. |
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| The
second half of the gig began with poet and comedian
John Hegley
presenting some largely insect-themed verse, before
performing another cellular song, ‘Amoeba’
with Hitchcock on guitar. Alessi’s
Ark (it’s a person, not an ark) sang a
hesitant, and not very creepy-crawly themed ‘Woman’,
before the ensemble returned (in various combinations)
to bash through Hitchcock’s ‘Snail’s
lament’ and ‘Madonna of the wasps’,
Coxon’s ‘Dead bees’ (Coxon’s
guitar, I should add, was becoming increasingly
animated at this stage, ) Hitchcock’s ‘Ant
woman’ and the marvellous ‘Ole Tarantula’,
before returning to the stage for an unlikely cover
of Wire’s ‘I am the fly’. “Happy
Christmas” said Hitchcock, true to form, as
he led the band from the stage. |
| It
was a thoroughly entertaining and suitably eclectic
evening, but not without its serous side. So let
me leave you with this thought, from Harvard University’s
Edward O Wilson. “If all mankind were to disappear,
the world would regenerate back to the rich state
of equilibrium that existed 10,000 years ago. If
insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse
into chaos”. So mind where you put that boot!
– Nick Morgan (concert photographs by
Kate) |
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the index of all reviews:
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