Here's the set list for La Laiterie, Strasbourg 15 May 1999
Peter Hammill/Stuart Gordon
[Thanks to Rolf for the Information!]



1) piano:

"siren song"
"too many of my yesterdays"
"tenderness"
"unrehearsed"

2) acoustic guitar:

"nightman"
because of a broken string of his guitar ph used his electric guitar instead:

"sign"
"the birds"

"amnesiac"
3)

"easy to slip away"
"unconscious life"
"faculty x" "bubble"
4) electric guitar:
"gift of fire"
"promo on the parapet"
5 enconre/piano: "traintime"


Review by Koen V

Saturday, Strassbourg: the large hall of the Laiterie, once crowded with Magma-fans, now discreetly halved in size by some motley curtain and populated with plastic tables and chairs.

Mad rush for the best places, and then a show which rarely really worked out right... Not just my opinion, as some veterans seemed to hold similar views afterwards. The sound was so-so, and the unnecessary lightshow and smoke-machine (!) proved to be distracting most of the time.

On top of that, some technical problems: one of Stuart's effects pedals made a strange crashing noise when used. The first couple of times I looked behind me, thinking that part of the overhead rigging had come down, but then I noticed the correlation with the pedal...

At the start of the acoustic guitar set, Peter broke a string again. Or not quite, it slackened somehow, got in the way of his fingers, and got ripped out after a while. No time for repairs, and on he went on electric guitar. A very nice Sign and The Birds, probably the highlights of the show. Amnesiac, which was probably also a world-premiere on electric guitar, did not quite work for me.

The final guitar set ended up a bit shorter than 'normal', with only the Turkey- song and Primo being played. A scan of the setlist later showed that Material Possession had been ditched.

And a nice Traintime as encore. But then, somehow, Traintime is always a nice one :-)
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