Bill Nelson Live
Queen Elizabeth Hall - London South Bank - 2 October 1998
First Annual Drifting Festival (Ambient)
Acts: Bill Nelson - John Martyn
Bill Nelson's Set List:
Music: Bill Nelson on acoustic and electric guitars, marimba, piano,
backing tapes
Visuals: Dreamstealers
Pictures (all pictures Copyright 1998 Jason Lane, posted here with kind permission)
click on the small image to see a larger image
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A collection of comments from fans:
Immaculate in brown 2 piece suit, global glasses and white shirt -Bill played for about an hour. Similar set up to last week but now centre stage with marimbas and grand piano,excellent visuals on centre screen. The set was a little less accessible to non-fans I thought than the last performance -I thought the e-bow was used a little too much. The variety even the Man can achieve with e-bow is limited - and he only used his Patrick Eggle guitar, Marimbas/piano used very sparingly. For the already converted however it was pure heaven as usual. However he received a louder response than last week probably there were more true Nelsonians present. Lots of punters buying 'atom shop' at the desk. Again Bill seemed to be in his element enjoying the moment and appearing very relaxed. An encore followed!!, and we went to bed happy with our Bill fix at least until the next time. Let us pray that rumours of a full Band tour next year actually do materialise-weve all heard it before very many times ..But I'm sure that this is really what EVERYBODY wants. Here's looking forward till tomorrow.
This was the first time I'd seen Bill live since his performance with Channel Light Vessel at the Jazz Cafe a couple of years ago. To be honest, I wasn't sure if Bill was looking lean or just unwell. At previous live performances, Bill had been quite a large person, but this time he appeared to have lost a heck of a lot of weight and looked almost like his 1970s skinny self. Didn't affect his playing, though. Bill's good at improvisation, and very very good at it when playing to an audience. I don't think this came up to the same high standard of enjoyability as his Altar Pieces set, which he played several years ago, being another improvisation set (with his brother) to tapes. Heck that must have been a while back: it was at the Town & Country in London, which has since closed. Here at the QE Hall, I felt Bill was not as relaxed and happy, and some of his playing was rather too technical - like he was practising scales rather than playing music, if you like. The mix was just dreadful, quite the worst mix for a live act I have ever experienced, though luckily someone discovered the volume knob before the end, so at least we didn't have to strain to hear Bill all night. Worst for me was the fact that many of the John Martyn fans walked out during Bill's show, mostly during his playing rather than waiting for the intervals between pieces. This was most distracting for the rest of the audience, and could not have escaped Bill's notice either. I can't tell you how irritating it is to be lost in one of Bill's mind-bending ebow extravaganzas only to have some twat stinking of beer leaning over and asking you to move to let him out. Good for Bill to keep going, and I agree with your reviewer that his no-tape improvisation using echo loops (not Frippertronics) was the high point of the show - despite at least 50 people walking out while he played just this one piece. Next time, Bill might be better to play on a more relevant booking...
It's many years since I last saw Bill in the flesh, and I was almost shocked by how he looked. He seemed to be small, hunched, almost wizened. I hope his health is OK. His stage presence, too, was very low-key - not quite shy, not quite apologetic, but heading that way. Very different from the man I once saw leading BBD - but I guess that none of us has changed for the better since then! I didn't notice any problems with the sound. I was sitting directly in front of the sound desk - so you'd expect it to be OK there. The music itself was very good - the other reviewers have described it as well as I could. I would have liked some of the tracks to have been longer, and more developed, but that's just my personal opinion. Near the end of Bill's set, a guy came and sat near me, and he was obviously recording the show. I had a word with him afterwards, but he said that he'd come in late and only got the last couple of tracks - so I didn't try to arrange any deals with him. I didn't see anyone else recording it.
Bill played for just short of an hour including an encore (which he played to a backing
tape he told us he had finished the day before). The highlight for me was an
untitled and totally improvised piece that Bill created using guitar and delay pedals.
I've always wondered about Bill's claims that he spends no more than a couple of hours
producing some of his best stuff but having seen him put together some magic live on stage
I can understand it now. Hard luck story of the day comes from the couple in the
seats next to me. They traveled to London from Birmingham just to see Bill play.
Unfortunately they were held up by traffic and got to their seats just in time to see Bill
leave the stage. They were heartbroken. The only consolation was that they got copies of
the new CDs which were selling well after Bill's performance.
Bespectacled Billy again appeared fit, well and relaxed. Same format as last weeks
performance - Bill improvising guitar plus some piano and xylophone to new backing tapes
prepared specifically for this performance as a one off. Some of the film projections
included parts used last week but I'd say that the vast majority were new. Bill thanked
Tony Paul and Dreamstealers for his work with Bill on these film projections. Some very
hypnotic images once again, some of which I found that I could not watch
continually. Some parts of the backing tapes were reminiscent of, or included
snippets of the Confessions of a Hyperdreamer box set from last year. Hints and motifs
only though. About an hour in length, Bill came back on for the last one. Some very
personal and evocative playing here I felt, slightly more 'deep' in delivery that
last weeks. Jupiter Island was described as being inspired by a a trip to Bali and
included island sounds collected on the trip. Mischief Goes To Mars was a reference to the
1950's cigarette cards of the same name that Bill used to collect as a boy and the
accompanying film sequence incorporated clips, titles and credits from 50's Sci-fi / B
movie's. I had half expected the vast majority of the audience to be there to see
John Martyn who came on after Bill but Bill got a very good reception and came back
on for the last track which he'd "only completed yesterday". It's worth
noting that, in a week when Bill has had two new CD's released here in the UK, he made no
mention either of them, played nothing from either of them and quite simply (admirably)
did what he wanted to, when he wanted to. He had clearly put a considerable amount
of work into preparing the backing tracks for these two shows as they were very intricate
and particularly rhythmic. Equally Bill came across as being very focused on his
live delivery - professional, relaxed and inspirational, and like these performances Bill
Nelson is IMHO quite simply a one-off.
Bill in fine form again. Similar set up to last friday - guitars, piano, marimbas (?) and loads of E-bow. The format was much the same as last week - Bill playing to backing tapes, back projection of video by Dreamstealers (mostly from last week's show but did I see some new pieces?) Bill had dressed more fomally - two piece suit and natty JFK specs - tres cool!! The highlight for me was the untitled item - this was simply Bill on electric guitar setting down a live backing by an extraordinary amount of delay and sustain such that he then improvised with E-bow and plain good old-fashioned fingerwork over what was a live tape loop - the result was astounding. All tracks were new and in fact Prorastination was introduced as having been written the day before! A brief word afterwards confirmed Bill's plans to get a band together for a tour next year and was at great pains to stress that this was something he had been striving to do ever since the Be Bop MkII idea was first mooted. This guy is tragically frustrated!! Bill was first on the "bill" last night - the audience I thought was a bit more receptive than before - there was certainly a good (and loud) Nelson contingent in the crowd - well done lads. Next on was John Martyn - trying to "drift" - the sound and mix was abyssmal but JM still managed to shine with some startling guitar work.
Thanks to Jason, Bill, Joe, John, Stewart, Alistair, Carl, and Garry for
contributions to this page.
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