"TIMES UP"

an Evening with PSYCHIC TV and Guests 1.5.99

Well, before I start the review of this gig I have to lay my cards on the table. I've been a fan of GENESIS P ORRIDGE and PSYCHIC TV for bloody years. Up until now however I have never seen them, always in the wrong place at the wrong time or they've played too far away etc, etc. The main problem of me not seeing what I feel to be one of the most challenging and innovative groups of the 80's and 90's is that Gen has been in exile in the U.S.A for most of the last decade following the fallout from the Spanner case. I won't go into details about this but I'm sure a little research on the net will fill in any details that you need to know.

The Royal Festival Hall on London's South Bank probably hadn't seen so many disparate types of people attend one event in a long time. From quite respectable couples to the multiply pierced, the hall was very full. First up was SCANNER with a faltering set of quite minimal techno .At first he had problems with the P.A but when those were sorted he sounded very interesting and his later set confirmed that technical problems aside he was excellent. Sadly I missed most of the next band due to lengthy queues at the bar (£2.70 for a pint of badly poured Guinness!) but from what I was told and the little that I saw BILLY CHILDISH and his FAMOUS HEADCOATS played a set of 60's inflected garage punk with gusto and humour including a cover of the A.T.V classic "Action, Time, Vision"

Introducing the bands and acting as Queen of Ceremonies was that famous English man abroad Mr. Quentin Crisp who took pleasure in telling us the next band up was ?and the MYSTERIANS. What a revelation, when the line up was announced this was the act I thought could be the weak link. A totally brilliant band! All the original members of this 60's band played a blinder and ? What a guy .A cross between Iggy Pop and James Brown. If I was half that fit now I'd be happy and he's got at least 20 years on me. Inevitably they played their biggest hit in this country "96 Tears" and went down a storm with the crowd leading to some of the first frenzied dancing of the evening .I would love to see them again perhaps in a sweaty club where the atmosphere could be a little more intimate.

Then one of the highlights of the evening. Genesis' new band THEE MAJESTY I really didn't know what to expect .He looked great in his extremely fetching pale suit that I'd seen pictures of him wearing for press conferences. This is where I start to get pissed off, the guy hadn't appeared on a stage in this country for almost 10 years and obviously was in a talkative mood; fair enough I wanted to hear what he had to say. However some of the others in the hall didn't, they just wanted entertaining or to witness a freak-show or whatever. Consequently this pissed Gen off and he spent most of the time answering hecklers.when they did play it was tracks of the new c.d. Larry Thrasher played keyboards and a very sinister looking man called Byrin Dall played some beautifully noisy treated guitar. This emphasised the simplicity of the words. The new c.d. will get reviewed elsewhere but it was a thought provoking and different performance.

SCANNER returned next with more of his cut-up techno. As well as a dinky little Theremin and a small mixer it looked strangely enough as if he were abusing a small stylophone eat your bloody heart out Rolf Harris!

THE MASTER MUSICIANS OF JOUJAKA are from Morocco and have worked with such people as Ornette Coleman and Brian Jones.Led by BACHIR ATTAR the Master Musicians played a spellbinding set of 2000 year old trance music .All I can think to describe them with is the term hypnotic. Strange rhythms seem to draw you in to the music and then trance you out .It sound s like a cliché I know but this is incredibly powerful music and I can only imagine the states you could get into listening to this stuff for long periods of time. This group is most definitely worth tracking down and listening to. They left us in an appropriate state to witness the triumphant return to this country of:

PSYCHIC TV featuring Alex Ferguson and Mathew Best from the classic PTV line ups .Coming on stage to lots of applause and rapturous shouting they played a blinding set of primal PTV music. Lots of screaming down the mic. They didn't do an obvious greatest hits set ,that would have been too easy anyway the charm of PTV's live performances for me (as heard on the "Live At" series)is the constant mutating of songs and themes. Kind of like real-time live cut-ups .Almost too soon it was time for them to go not before they had played the Hyperdelic classic and bona-fide hit single "Godstar",With this Gen jumped into the audience .Right on top of me actually ,thanks for the bruises Gen .Sadly the time was eaten up and they could only do a very short encore. This was a Rolling Stones Cover and dedicated to Anita Pallenberg who Gen hoped was up in the royal box from where he'd earlier been watching the proceedings .This seems to be a very short description of their set especially as I'd waited so long for it but it seems to have left impressions rather than concrete memories. Perhaps it was the after effects of the Master Musicians but time just seemed to envelope. Don't worry I'm not going all hippie shit but that's the way I see it. Basically I thought that they were excellent and played an appropriately disrespectful set considering they were in the heart of the capitals cultural quarter.that is the final image I'm going to close this piece with; a glorious,riotous,positive maggot at the heart of an already corrupt and stinking apple!