Gong – Montserrat 1973 and Other Stories

Perhaps not the best of rips, but then, parts of the original source aren’t exactly Blu-ray quality to begin with. This may be due to the circumstances under which some of the concert footage was shot; or, in other words, what did a psychedelic rockband do in a cathedral just as dark as the statue of the famous Black Virgin residing there up this day? It would have needed a Werner Herzog to get the lights right.

That said, this video is off to a fantastic start. The camera glides in bird’s eye view over the hilly surroundings of Montserrat, climbs a mountain, and finally focuses on the summit; while the eerie music slowly builds up to a climax, we suddenly see a couple of enormous pointed hats emerge from “the other side” – both in a geographical and metaphorical sense.
The sight is bewildering. The band enters this world as Tolkien’s Istari, the wizards, and they’re on their way to church. Not to convert to paganism poor christians who so erringly worship the one and only God; no, they’re going to do a gig.

The gig starts with a group hug and mantra-like singing (…Goooooonnggggg….!!!), synthesizers and amplifyers are turned on & tuned in an almost ritualistic manner…and off they go, with the allegedly poor christians as a most attentive and benevolent audience.

After the concert, Daevid Allen said he’d bowed down in reverence of the Black Virgin, whose significance as a spiritual power he had felt while playing. Of course, the group Gong isn’t against religion, on the contrary, I would say; they have created something of a religion themselves, although it doesn’t become clear of the following, more recently dated intermezzi, with Daevid Allen playing the monomaniacal anarchist, what kind of faith they’d had in mind at the time. Flying teapots had something to do with it, no doubt.

The other half of this video: Allen on his own, reciting poetry; Allen muttering politics, Allen showing that there’s only one weapon of mass destruction in this world, and it is called Daevid Allen. He illustrates this statement by destroying the entire interior of a room with an axe. Quite a violent clip indeed, it’s ten times rougher than any Who concert, I promise you.

As if to convince us he isn’t such a bad guy after all, we get a couple of soothingly sweet songs and poems; but don’t be fooled, in the end he literally flushes down this friendlier side. For there he is, the skinny white-haired elf, sitting fully naked on the toilet…if a 66-year-old long, limp schlong hanging down in the porcelain bowl seems somewhat off-putting to you, just skip this clip.

A second concert clip shows the band on stage again, celebrating the wedding of two of their members under a loud and threatening cacophony. Indeed, a man and woman actually get married on stage, and somewhere it is said they consumated their love there and then. The mayhem reminded me of the hellish tableaux of medieval painter Hieronymus Bosch, for sure.

The last clip is a concert – or better, a musically supported political pamphlet. I don’t know if it’s Allen there incoherently fulminating against the establishment, but I take it he was. Just consider his status as a true anarchist, who was once wanted by the French police for his active participation in the famous ’68 Paris student revolt.
Nice clip, you probably know the kind of scenes from early Pink Floyd etc. Microbiological life in motion, projected onto the walls in fluid colours, forming a wildly psychedelic light show.

The original dvd has no subs. here and there it will be difficult to understand what is being said. But - it's more about atmosphere than about words.

Have fun.

Clips:

1. gong at montserrat 1973
2. big tea
3. conscience strike
4. arrest me
5. gaia
6. tickOcock
7. garden song
8. acidmothersgong at the royal festival hall
9. softmachine at ufo club london