Tony Hill’s Fiction

Club 85, Hitchin
26th January 2002

Set List

Naked Ape
Leave Your Blues At Home (Inextactness)
Conscious Accident
Right Now Forever
Open Season
Everybody Knows
I Don't Wanna Talk About It
Non-Sense Fatigue
Dna, The Brain, The Universe

Encore:

Could've Been Great

The place was Club 85 in Hitchin, run by an amiable bloke called Matt who is quite passionate about his affair with the 85, the music scene, and getting bands through the door to pleasure the public.

However, the club being in its infancy meant that attendance was lower than it should have been.

All I can say is, pity you poor psychedelic citizens that didn't get off your stoned arses and get down there. You missed out on an extravaganza of sound and light that these days are few and far between at small venues.

The line up for the gig was according to the flyer, Inertia, a Led Zep style band. The Donut Crew doing funk rock, and of course Tony Hill’s Fiction.

To set the scene, lights were provided by Neil Rice of Opti, totally free for old times sake and for the want of getting his hands dirty again instead of delegating. Alongside him was Geoff Blindt (Mystic Lights, in his own right) who also works for Opti and there was Pooterland's Boris, the sorcerers apprentice.

The Rig consisted of four Solar 250's, 2 x Tutor 2's, a K4 with a Solar System mounted on it (personal favourite), a GoBoShow ‘upended’ for using clock face bowls ( Neils baby ), various rotating effect wheels, a Splodascope, filters, Vitriol glass slides boiled alive by the Tutor 2, polarising effects and a collection of John Lethbridge's positive/negative slides, distortion wheels and a whole array of other kaleidoscopic mind melt.

All of this mounted on a 4ft x 4ft scaffold tower. The whole thing with the mixing desk right in front of it looked some otherwordly mother(fucking) ship, piloted by the Whacky Brothers, who pulled out all the stops for a whole host of eye candy.

As for the bands, firstly I can only apologise to "Inertia" because I had my head down and arse up making up Vitriol slides ready to boil, so I never got into listening to them. However no news is good news as they say.

I did get released from the Whacky Brothers to listen to The Donut Crew and from starting out nervously they soon settled in to give some very good sounds using bongos, flute, percussion, guitars and vocals to produce a tribal, trance funked rock sound and a good Hendrix cover sung by a girl known as 'our mate' who had very crystalline vocals. Worth checking out if they're in your area.

Tony Hill's Fiction, (for those of you who don't know, check out http://dreamwater.net/music/fiction, consisted of course. Tony Hill himself, in human terms very laid back, quiet, almost pensive and well sound.

In musical terms, a fucking maniacal genius on guitars, (nothings changed). Dean E Holt on bass, top bloke full of beans and herbs, and Syd Farrell on drums, also top geezer, he and Dean E also play together in stoner rock band Triacyde.

Fiction came on hard and fast, full of fuzz in yer face take it or bollocks hard rock, thundering bass, demonic guitars, pounding drums, together with Tony's time ravaged vocals that crept through you like a dream invader to complete the journey into the dark side of psychedelic rock. They were well up for the moment and didn't disappoint.

Top draw stuff and highly recommended to take you on a roller-coaster ride psychedelic metal sounds.
All in all a brilliant gig.

A must see band, and the lightshow making it an extra special adventure.
Nice one Neil!!

Hello to Myke Ssyke who came and said Hi to some of the Pooterland Crew, sorry that pOoTer was not there, he was laying at home with a lung infection...