With Lloyd Swanton on double bass, Chris Abrahams on piano, and Tony Buck on drums, The Necks provided a night of hypnotism that consumed us whole. It’s easy to describe the type of music they play, but it’s almost impossible to describe what it does to you. On the surface, the gents play single movements of music that start off soft and slow and become something else entirely by the time they finish. In the meantime the listener is likely to be transported to another dimension, relive their entire life, or inhabit the body of another living being. It’s the stuff lucid dreams are made of.
Seeing The Necks play live is like falling down the rabbit hole. In this world, it’s fine to cross your legs, close your eyes and go wherever The Necks decide to take you. The most exciting thing is that perhaps they don’t even know where we’re all going. It’s obvious that most of the audience see The Necks at every chance they get – a group that has improvised their way through 18 studio albums and thousands of gigs over more than 25 years.
Seeing The Necks play live is like paying Elon Musk to take you to space but then finding out that your pilot is Willy Wonka. The metaphors I’m using to describe the evening may be whimsical or flippant, but there’s no way to give justice to what they do. This is most obvious when the entire room seems to shift when I open my eyes after the first piece. The amount of skill involved in The Necks’ performance makes me react in a way I thought was impossible while sober. They’re not musicians, they’re hypnotists who happen to play music.
Seeing The Necks play live is like realising everything else you’ve ever seen just isn’t that good. Comparing them to anything else is likely to be a waste of time. The overheard discussions at intermission sound like some punters have just been reborn. Others describe their visions as reality. As I was somersaulting my way through the desert, one of my comrades saw babies, and another saw lots of water. It’s interesting when an audience is quite clearly ‘in it together’. It’s a journey we’re all on, and we’ll arrive at the same destination, but how we get there is crazily different.
Loved: Hearing the conversations during intermission.
Hated: Returning back to Earth.
Drank: Moscato, of course.
BY NAJ
