Litmus - Bull and Gate 12.09.09

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Mon, 31 Aug 2009, Litmus wrote:

> Litmus are playing a "special" at the Bull & Gate in Kentish Town on
> Saturday September 12th.  This will be one of those occasions when
> the band get to play a really long set with no support acts.  The
> infamous Litmus psychedelic lightshow will, of course, be there!

 	This was an excellent gig, a real return to form after me seeing 
too many gigs in a row where the sound was bad, Martin was ill etc. This 
time everyone was well and the sound, once the keyboards had been adjusted 
up in the first break, was perfect: I heard words I've never been able to 
make out before, and indeed, Simon seemed to be trying harder with his 
singing than usual and had some new ideas for the guitar during the 
breaks, into which Olly the new keyboard player has managed to force 
himself. Whenever the band got locked into a jam in one of the many 
lengthy breaks, I'd look round at Olly after a minute or two and find him 
tapping a few keys that fit perfectly and occasionally even managing to 
rev the whole band up by an swirling build-up of tension. This is how it 
should be, I am very pleased by this tendency.

 	I won't give a set-list because Colin can do it better than I 
can, but special mention must be made of the pair of songs Martin 
introduced apparently as part of an argument with someone about whether 
Blodwyn Pig were the best band to come out of Birmingham or not. He 
prefaced that explanation with the words, "This is for all the people who 
call us a second-hand second-rate rehash of Hawkwind. I'll have you know, 
we can be a second-hand second-rate rehash of *any band you care to name*" 
and then they played Duran Duran's `Planet Earth' and Black Sabbath's 
`Symptom of the Universe', barely pausing for breath, concluding with the 
remark, "It's not Blodwyn Pig, is it?" Both versions were excellent; I 
personally have been waiting for someone to recpature `Planet Earth' for 
spacerock since I first heard it. And `Symptom' sounds *really weird* 
without screeched Brummy vocals. Anyway. They then did one 
track off the second and four-fifths of the first demo, so it was a pretty 
unexpected set all things considered. The main surprise was how little of 
_You Are Here_ there was, I think only the first track!

 	I am getting too old for my old dancefloor antics; my back and 
neck were killing me for a couple of days afterwards, and my ears only 
stopped buzzing some time Monday, but it was all worth it. I hope the next 
gig is sooner than they seemed to think it would be.

> The new album "Aurora" is now available in shops and from the band's
> online shop [1] .

 	I bought it, have played it, and will have to live with it a while 
longer before giving some kind of view. I'm certainly not as immediately 
struck with it as was Carl, but I want to give it a proper chance before 
opining. Tell you what though, I'm already really excited for the next 
one... Yours,
 		Jon

-- 
       Jonathan Jarrett, Cambridge    jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
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  "With Capitalism, man exploits man.  With Socialism, it is exactly opposite"
 	                 -Robert Anton Wilson