Gong, The Steve Hillage Band
Brighton Corn Exchange
29th November, 2009

One of my esteemed gigging companions, who’ll not see his 49th birthday again, dipped into his pocket and produced a photo of himself at University wearing a wool hat and embroidered Planet Gong denim. “If I’d been told when I was 18 that I’d be seeing Gong supported by Steve Hillage,” he opined, “I’d have wet myself”. There were a lot of damp people in the house in Brighton, and it wasn’t the appalling rain outside. A tide of love washed over the venue, as the straight cosmic riffing of Hillage’s band whetted the appetite, before Gong appeared. We talk about ageing in rock, but Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth were always old – now 71 and 77. Yet they show you don’t have to take residence in Bexhill. You can fly a teapot forever. The best bits of 2032 were woven in with the classics, creating the dense, motorik panto that is Gong at its very best, taking themselves seriously and laughing their socks off at the same time. Wonderful.