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Venue: Whitchurch Progressive Music Festival (Afternoon session)
Date: 8 August 1999
Setlist: (40 mins) All Grown Up; Closer; Palmistry; When I Was Young;
Ivory Tower; Childhood's End.
Only one set at this last minute performance - John had apparently turned up the previous day and harangued the organisers until they finally gave in and told him to turn up the following afternoon with his keyboard.
The compere introduced John with the comment, "As soon as he's set up he'll be lurching into overdrive and taking off with all this stuff." - a reference to all the computer equipment that John had to set
up before beginning the music.
After a couple of minutes John said hello and commented that "later on he'd be doing a couple of 'progressive things'" and, with this, he launched straight into 'All Grown Up', a slow and haunting track which acts as a gentle introduction to both John's music and his softer side. This track was back introduced as "A song about growing up in an orphanage - which I know nothing about".
The next track is 'Closer' which, after a plea to turn the bass down a little, was explained as being "about love and espionage, which I know nothing about!". 'Closer' was originally used by Max Bacon
on his 'The Higher You Climb' CD (as was the set opener) and was a song potentially known to the audience but I think that, like myself, no-one else had heard the CD as there was little recognition apparent.
'Closer' features some soloing from John and is a little more uptempo than 'All Grown Up' - though still laid back by rock standards! - and there was plenty of applause at the end of the track from the
appreciative audience.
John introduced 'Palmistry' by telling us that he'd been "in Hastings the other day and palmistry is obviously big business there, as every second place you went past said 'Have Your palm read here', .... have
your money taken here!"
'Palmistry' started with just a simple piano tune, rather than the layered synthy sound of the previous tracks, and it built with drums, which John soloed over, to being a rather proggy track by the end - though still fairly laid back.
I guess a bit of explanation on how John performs is in order here - otherwise you'll be wondering how one man can play keyboards, sing and drum at the same time.
Much of the music is played back from John's faithful Acorn (?) computer. It takes a bit of messing about with between tracks (to select the next track) but is less hassle than a joking drummer. This is not to say that John lacks talent - he played most of the music in the first place - and it's just the backing track from the Life Underground CD. He sings and adds keyboards live over the backing and it all works very well. At least he's honest about it - admitting that he'd like to work in a band situation - he just can't afford the band!
'When I Was Young' started with drums and a slightly faster tempo.
I think it was around this point that I started to think that, despite the show being not at all what I expected, the music was great and that I had to see John perform again. This feeling just kept building through his forty minute set. The last of the slow ones was dedicated "to anyone who may be a little sad at the moment."
A slight problem with 'the band' lightened the atmosphere and gave the opportunity for some cheery banter with a couple of the crowd who said "sack the band!" - "They're cheap!" replied John, only
to be told that "they don't buy the drinks though, do they?" - "They do get some spilt on them from time to time though," came the instant reply.
A musical box chimes the intro to the lament which is 'Ivory Tower'.
The high pitched chime persists thought the quiet and simple first heartfelt verses of the track but stops as the track builds towards it's louder and rather abrupt ending. This surprised the audience, and it took a few seconds for them to show their warm appreciation. John's voice works very well with these lighter numbers and injects plenty of feeling into the performance, showing his love for the music and songs.
The next song, 'Childhood's End', is introduced with the idea behind the track, that on the last night of your seventeenth year you should go to visit a place for one last time to play with their toys before 'growing
up' - that place being Childhood's End.
This was the progressive track, though the audience didn't actually show a massive amount of enthusiasm until John asked if they actually wanted to hear anything Progressive? The response was an overwhelming "Yes!"
'Childhood's End' was indeed a progressive tune of mega proportions - tempo changes, interesting lyrical theme and extremely catchy music.
Here was one guy I had to see perform again and 'Childhood's End' was the clincher - not that I really needed one. The initial zippiness of the track subsided as the story led towards waking up as an adult, but not before a final bit of musical fun. This, of all the tracks performed, was the one which stood out head and shoulders above the rest. This is not to denigrate the previous tracks - they were all great too - but 'Childhood's End' really was the icing on the cake. It wasn't just me either - the whole audience showed their appreciation with the loudest round of applause of the afternoon as the song finished.
Unfortunately time had beaten John and we never got the second 'proggy' track - but I don't think that anyone left the hall unhappy - they'd all experienced a superb show by a great musician who will hopefully give
us a full show at next years festival.
Doug Anderson
Reproduced by permission. A fuller version of the review can be found on http://www.crosswinds.net/~gigreview/jy/index.htm
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