Das 1978er Konzert aus Kansas City ist wahrscheinlich das beste und intensivste Tondokument, das von Peter Hammill exisitert. Ich habe es bisher nur als Bootleg und freue mich sehr auf eine remasterte Version des Konzerts. Leider fehlt ausgerechnet das finale Refugees.
Skeletons of Songs Review by Dave Thompson
Originally a limited-edition vinyl bootleg released in the late ’70s (now one of THE great Hammill collectibles), this soundboard recording of a February 1978 solo show at All Souls Unitarian Church in Kansas City was always the best of the pitifully few live documents available from this most spellbinding of performers. Reissued across two CDs, with six bonus tracks recreating the entire concert, it stands as an essential addition to his canon. Opening with a stark „House With No Doors,“ Hammill bares his intentions from the beginning. A year previous, Van Der Graaf Generator finally gave up their latest ghost, a sad end most inadequately captured on the official Vital live album. Listening to Skeletons, however, it is painfully obvious not only why VDGG broke up, but why they had to. Shorn of the increasingly indulgent solo pyrotechnics of his bandmates, the clutch of VDGG songs which survived into his solo repertoire („Still Life,“ „Man Erg,“ and, incredibly, „A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers“ are included) are completely reinvigorated, re-explored, and remapped as well. The closing „Refugees“ is so fragile that it’s worth the price of admission alone. Hammill’s solo material, capturing him in transition between the marital shattering of Over and the proto-technology of The Future Now, is less revelatory, simply because he wrote most of these songs for his own use to begin with. Still, „Modern“ (from Silent Corner) benefits from what would now be called the „Unplugged“ treatment, while gentler pieces like „Time Heals,“ „If I Could,“ and „Easy to Slip Away“ boil with a spontaneity that their studio counterparts were too sensitive to enjoy. Such contradictions are this album’s greatest magic. Subsequent decades have seen Hammill shift some way away from the raw bones and bare nerves with which he once poked his audience, and it is often easy to forget just how innovative a writer and performer he can be. Skeletons of Songs cures that forgetfulness with a barely disguised vengeance.
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Hey man, why don't we make a tune... just playin' the melody, not play the solos...