Ozrics on Google video

[damien]

[yiannis]

Certainly not my cup of tea.

[stcl24]

Amazin vids!

[brandi]

Wow, ....Of course we look miserable in that prog day video footage, it was a b****y miserable gig, it was like having to play someone's b****y backyard BBQ! We couldn't wait to get of stage! ...and yes, Silas and I could play rock paper scissors during sploosh, so could Zia & Swede, and you know what? I think next time we'll do just that! There isn't a bass line to sploosh, nor is there any parts for Silas to play until half way through, if he does anything more it will just sound a mess, it's plenty full enough. Zia usually left the stage for sploosh, as do I if there is a crowd to go out and dance with and talk, to however at this particular gig I really really didn't feel inspired to go out and dance. Playing prog gigs if an awful kind of torture. Every sits down and pulls out a camera and just wants you to perform like a puppet, while they sit and judge your every move ...it's like theatre rather than a gig.
But that's just not fair to judge my bass playing off the only track with no bass line Try Erpland, or Rhino, or Eternal, now that's a bit more fair.

[yiannis]

I think the whole band looks like they'd rather be anywhere else but there. The prog crowd tends to be so far up their own backside they're turned inside out. There have been positive comments about your playing on the board and personally I think you're fine, I really enjoy Sunrise. If anything people say they'd like more of a band thing, which would mean more input from others, including yourself of course. Now make sure you make your way over to Athens, it's high time for the real thing, DVDs are fine but only a substitute.

[alberik]

Screw prog-scientist-crowd's dissection, I still remember Ljubljana show, small venue, cheerful crowd, my friends and I first row, half drunk, half stoned, over the moon for finally seeing my fave band and taunting Ed with 'Ahu Belahu' shouts

Now, that was a proper gig.

ps: I did dissect the return of Return to Forever acoustic show, sans Di Meola, and I was so terribly bored.

[brandi]

Ah Alberik, that Ljubljana gig was brilliant ! I so wish we could play there again. Unfortunately I'm not sure that we ever will be able to. . . it's so dumb ... Do you remember how far beyond sold out that show was ? ...and how much fun everyone had ? Well the promoter claims she didn't make enough money so she refuses to have us back. There was at least 200 people in the street who would have loved to have bought a ticket but it was sold out. I remember Anthony, our merch guy at the time opened all the shutters on along the front so everyone in the street could watch the show too. I just remember hearing a big cheer and suddenly our audience was twice the size ! That was so cool ! ;D
It's super frustrating though she agreed that her breakeven point would be at 300 tickets sold, after that we were to get a percentage of tickets sold. We sold 400+ tickets, but when it came time to settle at the end of the night she told me she had lost money on the show (she claims she spent too much on advertising and should have gone for a bigger venue). I was very polite and understanding about the situation, always willing to help a fellow female in the music industry, especially if she's going to try to bring an indy band into uncharted eastern territories, (right on), so I let her off in the end, stupid sucker that I am. I guess I was thinking it was better to try again next time, rather than cry over spilt milk and we had a heart felt conversation along these lines. Then I get home to find out she complained to our agency said she lost a load of money, I was rude, and that there was no way she would book the band again. I don't know if she was trying to avoid our agency coming back to her and saying "look we had a contract here and you broke it". But I feel like she really did sucker me on that one. I really let her off the hook there, thought I'd made a friend and a good contact, and now she won't talk to us. Honestly if you can't make money on a sold out show, your doing something wrong. She over advertised, which was expensive, I appreciate that (very rarely does one ever come across that problem), but I really wasn't the one in charge of her ads budget, she did that herself. . . Sure wish she'd realize she's missing out on a really good thing though.
Anyway, ...do you know any other promoters in Ljubljana ?
We'd love to play there again, it was beautiful.

ps. - Yannis - We're talking to the Greek promoters as we speak !
...hope to see you there in November ! x x ;D

[yiannis]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope it works out and you play weekend as I don't live in Athens and will have to travel. I won't miss it anyway, but it'd be nice if I didn't miss work either

See you there ;D

[alberik]

Ah, yes, the neverending drama of that booking agency, she never makes money, I believe the only time she did make money was with Fantomas. She is a good woman, has good connections with the artists, solid taste in music but I hear there is ferocious competition that gets in her way. Also, maybe the ads were really what killed the income, it was heavily advertised.

You might try Kino Šiška, it's been opened in Fall 2009, a famous ex-movie theatre which is doing incredibly well, what with big and not so big names . It's what we needed in Ljubljana.

www.kinosiska.si/en/

[brandi]

Hey, Cheers for that, looks perfect.
We've contacted them, and we'll see what happens.

...Ok, so how about Croatia ? Or Prague ?

(I'm really excited about the prospect of Budapest on Nov. 14th,
it's totally not confirmed yet, but I think it's looking quite likely now.)

[brujoman]

torino!
torino!
torino!

[brandi]

17 NOV. - TORINO or GENOVA or VERONA
Not quite sure yet which one, but I'll let you know once it's confirmed. x x

[brujoman]

torino. per favore!!!!!
molte grazie

[yiannis]

Just checked a concert site and didn't see anything about an Ozrics gig in Greece November and December Is it happening in the end?

[yiannis]

There are some rather short videos from inorock festival on youtube. Not too bad at all. Fingers crossed we'll all get to see them in a town near us.

[erpman]

[yiannis]

WOW! This version was similar to the one on Sunrise but, dare I say, better! Thanks erpman.

[alberik]

This is Poland, right? So Ozrics are back on the old continent - woohoo!

[erpman]

[mescal]

Nov 12, 2007 7:16:02 GMT -8 kirk said:

The tonbridge and pullens festival vids were released by TASTE. They also released some vary rare vids of The Ullulators which I am still trying to get copys of, as well as some HW gigs.

TASTE was a low key kind of official bootleg label set up by some fans, the vids are ok but suffer from the usual dated low budget FX of cheap 80s releases.

There was a Taste production live Ullulators set on google videos?

[yiannis]

Yes video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5312383876233212041#

[ozricnutter]

Yiannis that was a special find, have karma.

[yiannis]

Why, thank you, your madjesty

[yiannis]

A fellow countryman of mine has posted a bass cover of Iscence. Quite good I might add.

[erpman]

[yiannis]

I've spotted another video from progday here: www.musoscribe.com/features/ozric_tentacles.shtml It's a dub jam, quite cool.

[yiannis]

This is by far the best documented tour ever. Check it out: www.youtube.com/results?search_type=videos&search_query=ozric+tentacles&search_sort=video_date_uploaded&suggested_categories=10&uni=3 The first few pages are nearly exclusive made up of this year's footage, some of which is quite good quality.

[yiannis]

Nov 12, 2007 7:04:42 GMT -8 kirk said:

The DVD that is titled Silchester festival is incorrectly titled, it is actually the elephant Fayre in cornwall 1987. I am sure of this because I was there with the band and they jammed with Harvey Bainbridge. This was the first time that the Ozrics met up with Hawkwind. The jam happened in a private field at the back of the infamous maze (people got stuck in this maze for hrs at a time and could not get out). I am sitting at the front watching them play on this DVD whilst recording the jam on Eds boom box.

The band next met up with Hawkwind at Keele university where they supported them in 1988.

I came across this post many times before I realised this: are you the guy in black with the hat Kirk? If yes you look a bit stressed at times.

[chai]

many thanks for all the lovely people posting vids from the gigs... getting my ozrical fix until they come to Baltimore again...the 2010 shows are very well executed, loving this! UK sticky fingers gigs are sweet, ayurvedic is amazing...

[beezer]

Aug 1, 2010 16:20:31 GMT -8 brandi said:

Wow, ....Of course we look miserable in that prog day video footage, it was a b****y miserable gig, it was like having to play someone's b****y backyard BBQ! We couldn't wait to get of stage! ...and yes, Silas and I could play rock paper scissors during sploosh, so could Zia & Swede, and you know what? I think next time we'll do just that! There isn't a bass line to sploosh, nor is there any parts for Silas to play until half way through, if he does anything more it will just sound a mess, it's plenty full enough. Zia usually left the stage for sploosh, as do I if there is a crowd to go out and dance with and talk, to however at this particular gig I really really didn't feel inspired to go out and dance. Playing prog gigs if an awful kind of torture. Every sits down and pulls out a camera and just wants you to perform like a puppet, while they sit and judge your every move ...it's like theatre rather than a gig.
But that's just not fair to judge my bass playing off the only track with no bass line Try Erpland, or Rhino, or Eternal, now that's a bit more fair.

I distinctly recall that you did go out and dance and puff puff on a chuff chuff during "The Throbbe", along with some 50 other spectators who just couldn't help themselves, as it should be at an Ozrics gig, and particularly during that song. And based on Ed's comments about "being able to see the audience for a change", I got the impression that the atmosphere may have reminded him somewhat of the free-festival days. I thought it was a great show, but I'm just one person with one opinion, and that opinion is very much biased by the fact that I flew halfway across the country for the event, but mostly to see Ozric Tentacles for the first time in 15 years, and that finally getting to do so after numerous setbacks (like Christophe Godin being denied a work visa and being forced to back out, then having to sit through two absolutely pathetic excuses for rock bands earlier in the day - one of whom ran well over their scheduled time because they were shooting HD video and couldn't get their act together, thus curtailing the Ozrics set as well), was the culmination of much anticipation on my part. And I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of a wonderful set, although the local IPA leaves a lot to be desired and wasn't sitting with me very well. But it's a college town, and apparently the kids like drinking that crap.

I'm sorry you feel the way you do about that gig, but I can understand where you're coming from. That ProgDay lot is a strange one, with a goodly number of them being 70s burnouts that never got past their Genesis records, and another sizable portion seemingly there more for the spectacle than to have fun and really get into the music. Throw in the endless parade of polite but persistent picture takers throughout, and one can see where some bands might feel like they're in a zoo, relegated to making funny faces at the nice humans who might throw them a peanut every now and again.

Somewhere earlier in this thread there was a mention of the RTF reunion tour. Now that was pure theater! Not that they knew any better, but all the fire and passion was gone, and in its place was technically proficient, but completely sterile music. And the audience politely applauded after each song....

Perhaps that's what's come of the followers of progressive rock. We've all aged and learned from our mistakes (some more than others!), and instead of being wandering, dope smoking seekers of "wow, man", we've become engineers and computer programmers (and parents!) and have found happiness in taking ourselves entirely too seriously.

But there is hope, both in the direction of the music and the crowd following it. As with everything else good in life, it's left up to the next generation to renew the aspects that have stagnated, and there are numerous newer bands playing everything from space rock to heavy fusion to stoner rock to retro prog doing just that. They might not know much about trilogy-era Gong, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Can and King Crimson, but having grown up listening to their respective followers like Ozric Tentacles, Planet X, Kyuss and Anekdoten, they carry the torch ably.