Van Der Graaf Generator - 'Man-Erg' - live in Manchester 2005

[saxsot]

Thanks, it's great!

[telemacherT2]

The way they are meant to be heard:

LOUD & RAW !!!

[SirPisofshit]

Crying, crying.

Thanx.

[FerranK68]

Wonderful.Absolutely

[MrElbino]

This is much more than rock - this is Music at its best.

I saw the same show in Amsterdam. They were fantastic. The best show I have ever seen. Does any body know what happened to David?

[mauricemorning]

Rock is not progressive? Rock is progressive rock and roll which is progressive blues. Progressive rock is progressive rock. If there can be progressive jazz there can be progressive rock. Actually all music is progressive or regressive something or another.

[joefloydwonka]

Great Sound!

[oskarveliky]

goose bumps again?

[Bietel]

'Yes created punk rock', of course there are people who don't get that one, bless 'em. I loved Yes and I can still play their old material (although the lyrics I thought were very mystic when I was 12 are just nonsense now - it aches to admit that), but after enough Yes you need someone who says 'look at all the jerks in their tinsel glitter suits, pansying around, look at all the nerks in their leather platform boots...'

Indeed: Peter Hammill in Nadir's Big Chance.

Johnny Rotten liked VdGG!

[axzck]

best lyrics ever written in english.

[oskarveliky]

It is very hard to say: the best. But these are one of the best definitely. Very impressive. Sometimes this song makes me cry...

[telemacherT2]

Vielen Dank,

Doktor-Professor!

[professoricon]

es ist mir eine Freude

[Mengalaccio]

I actually prefere him much more than Peter Gabriel or many other singers.. But the group is also very strong!

[SkillMasters101]

magnifico the best

[TheMitzjob]

tears to my eyes...50 years from now...Peter Hammill will remain as one of the great writers of prog-rock music...

[sinisterfw]

at this moment my fav VDGG song. The lyrics are sooooo good

[postesg]

eliottelescorielese! you needed to see them back then in the seventies not now!! I bought the albums as they were released, I have the rcent cd present from them, I rarely play it,but love the old vddg albums and p.h. solo work.

[postesg]

what! Yes...... created punkrock, what planet are you on??? anyway saw vddg live in 1976 and some of my mates spoke to them arterwards. I have all the original albums up untill vital.

[ernestbazuka]

the great musicians and talents!!!but the media don't reconize your talents and the great art of prog rock!!!

[eliottelescorielese]

Too bad that Jackson's saxophone solo was edited, it was my favorite part of the song, but you did a great job anyway! These guys are my favorite band, but sadly I was born in 1991 and I'll probably never see them in concerto with Jackson...

[professoricon]

Please check out my other videos where I posted another (full) version, at someone's request, but it is split into two parts due to it's length.

[eliottelescorielese]

thank you! I'm watching it!

I seriously hope that VDGG and Jackson tour together one more time, I really have to see them...

[professoricon]

You can also find some video footage of the Royal Festival Hall reunion.

[kipptumor]

There was a VDGG Reunion tour?! wow! Anyone who remembers these guys was into the obscure for sure. I have this album still with the pink Charisma label!

[mobyboy]

this vdgg best song !

[sentient]

This is a great song to dedicate to your special someone. :P

[Snitsie]

If you want that special someone to think your schizophrenic yes..

[javierpellin]

this is a song without dedication, is about mankind, if you want to self-dedicate this song...

do it, schiz... jejejeje

[johnjhuff]

Other than The Musical Box by Genesis and Close to the Edge by Yes, This is my favorite song ever. They're all basically tied for the top spot.

[GAFFTV]

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you there... "Close to the Edge" is just in a league of its own...

[johnjhuff]

I agree that 'Close to the Edge' is in a league of it's own, but all of these great prog bands are kind of in a league of their own, don't you think?

[professoricon]

I love 'Close To The Edge', and bought it when it was first issued, plus a few other of their albums, (Yessongs, Tales of Topographic Oceans etc). I saw then live twice, but I also agree with the common conception of Yes - that they would often over elaborate the technicalities. VDGG were (are) equally as good musicians, but had more imagination and considerably more vitality.

[professoricon]

The best thing about the likes of Yes is that they created punk rock.

[sinisterfw]

I presume you mean to say that Punk Rock was created as a reaction to Yes, Pink Floyd and the likes.

[professoricon]

At least you understood it.

[flaneller]

@professoricon

What I like about 70s prog rock is the fact that it was so varied. No major band sounds like any other, from Jethro Tull to Henry Cow. Much as I love them however, I would disagree with VDGG being as good musicians as Yes. In comparison they lack the effortless sense of phrasing and control that Bruford, Squire and Howe had.

[professoricon]

@flaneller:

VDGG mostly played wiithout a bassist, and Hugh Banton fills in with the bass pedals as an organist would.

There are few technically better than Steve Howe, but I always felt he was perhaps a little unimaginiative, and Peter Hammill would never claim himself to be anything other than an average guitarist (or worse).

Guy Evans is exceptionally good, and in my opinion better than Bruford.

IMHO it was perhaps the control and effortless phrasing that makes Yes so uninspiring.

[flaneller]

@professoricon Disagree very strongly with your opinion of Howe. For me he is one of the most imaginative and original guitarists in rock ever. For instance his tone is generally much cleaner and more jazz like than the average rocker, and his melodic lines have this unique sense of colour and life to them, almost like an "afrobeat" guitarist. He was certainly no boringly typical "macho" blues wailer like so many guitarists of the era.

[flaneller]

@professoricon In terms of songwriting imagination it's difficult to compare because they were interested in totally different things. VDGG are very "dark" lyrically and musically "rougher" and more liable to explore dissonant and aggressive textures (though often within the overall form of a relatively simple song). Yes are lyrically much "brighter" and optimistic and have more controlled, "busy" textures in carefully integrated forms that develop "organically". Apples and oranges, really!

[professoricon]

@flaneller:

I agree, but I still feel that VDGG have more imagination and considerably more vitality.

[professoricon]

@flaneller:

Apples and oranges, or maybe the difference between classical and rock'n'roll.

[flaneller]

@professoricon I would agree that VDGG were more consistent. The Yes Album, Fragile and Close to the Edge are among my absolute favourite albums but nearly everything else (including solo releases) after 1975 I have problems with and nearly everything after 1980 I despise! VDGG and Hammill just kept churning out classics.

[asarapi]

funny, my friends all loved VDGG with a passion, hope you got rid of those friends with bad taste, hehehe.

[hskoppek]

also surprised to hear that PH is still touring. I followed them around Europe in my youth until they broke up in 78.

vdG was the kind of music none of my friends liked, but I still think it is awesome.

[harrifripp]

I need to rebuild my Van Der Graff collection. Hamill's f---ing brilliant.

[javierpellin]

you mean fucking brilliant, yes he is...

...no self censorship over your own worlds

[felixlpilon]

I saw Peter Hammill solo in Montreal just a couple weeks ago. What a musician. The crowd was small (400-500) but amazing. I really hope it'll encourage him to come back with the whole band.

[Civas0072]

Great song! Awesome!

[tommyschwartz946]

2005?!?

Sheesh, are they still touring and performing these masterpieces?

I'm well known to the originals but would never have guessed they'd regrouped and performed Man-Erg in the last 20 years!

[mayorelvis2]

An extraordinary masterpiece! Bravo!

[CilyPudi]

professoricon, you defend yourself way too much! haha The sound and the video is very good actually. I could not be there, so that is that...thank you. And you should practice saying fuck off ungrateful bastards and find a life more often ☺☺

[professoricon]

I know what you mean, and I'm sometimes tempted, but I think there is too much of that.  Besides, I got him to back down and admit that he enjoyed it, which I find is far more satisfying, and he might just learn not to be so quick next time.

[hellmuth26]

this video demonstrates perfectly why i cant stand amateur camera work.

[professoricon]

Please direct me to a better recording of this concert.

[hellmuth26]

We saw that the camera has a zoom function, I just wished it was actually used more than once or twice (and on all band members). Why make us feel like we're in the nose-bleed section. I guess if this is the only recording available, we have to just accept it, but I'm just saying...

[professoricon]

Yes, I understand (and agree) that zooming in close-up improves the footage considerably. However, for distance work the zoom feature on my camera is badly affected by camera shake. To reduce camera shake I deliberately limit zooming to just a few moments for affect, and for variation. I don't claim to have got the balance perfect, but in the moment I made an attempt.

[professoricon]

I have bought a tripod to help minimise camera shake, but obviously cannot set it up in the concert hall. I need to buy myself a new camera with a stabilisation feature. However, one of the great features of my old camera is the sound quality.

[professoricon]

I admit to being an amateur and that it's not perfect, but this is as good as it gets. The alternative is not to post at all, but I hope from other comments that some people enjoy it.

I welcome all comments and ratings.

[professoricon]

The audio alone could be worth posting, even is the video were a black screen.

Actually, I also have a bootleg double-CD of this concert, which I bought on eBay. Rather spookily the image of a ticket on the CD shows the recording was made from the exact same seat number as mine, except in the Stalls whereas I was in the Circle.

[hellmuth26]

OK, fair enough, and I did enjoy the music.

[celtanus]

My favorite band in my twenties. There goes my youth...

[vunder22]

I was just listening to this yesterday in the car. One of my favorite VdGG songs, and this is a very good performance of it. Thanks for posting this.

[pinkyfloydyfan]

VDGG for all time of the day.

Since i was teen, VDGG still one of few bands who give me joice of listen, joice of being, joice of feeling again that great music with great words still alive and well.

When VDGG on SACD?

When VDGG on american tour?

Vive VDGG!

[professoricon]

Peter Hammill solo:

21st June 2008 - NEARFEST festival, Bethlehem, PA, USA (subject to work visa).

[Rgalvez]

This is the VDGG we love: delicate, deranged, sweet, manic, majestic, cacophonic, beautiful.

God save Van der Graaf!

[wericfender]

metal sucks

prog rock 4 ever

peter hammill forever

[lymph12]

...what about prog-metal

[Bietel]

Isn't.

Metal is not prgressive; progressive music logically excludes metal, in fact 'progressive rock' is describes something non-existent.

Rock is NOT progressive.

Some jazz music is, some 'modern classical' music is, most of it isn't.

This doesn't mean I don't like rock or metal - but please let's not pretend there is something progressive in being 'faster, more brutal and/or more complex than the band of yesterday'.

That said, VdGG (not being limited to rock) progress all the time :-)

[BlueTolerated]

It's a very vague term anyway.

[shanath18]

I love this band! Awesome video.

[kaaaappa]

grandi!!!!

[enchul]

too  hard to poast a message ! where is rf ?

[nontheistdavid]

I love this song! Why does most music suck now? Why are there not bands like this around anymore? I agree Porcupine Tree is one of the few good newer bands.

[jortylbro]

There are still plenty of good modern bands, especially in prog. You just gotta find them.

[lymph12]

the truth is that the way music is recorded now makes it all sound like elevator music...with guitars. The flaws in analog recording in the 60s and 70s made a much better sound. Also, the musicians just arent talented, the lyrics that are accepted now would be highly criticized 40 years ago (u ppl who got a problem with Grand Funk, DARE TO COMPARE!!!!), and the singers are all products of the hormones in the meat.

[CilyPudi]

ditto the hormones haha, that's funny

[silentgnome]

VdGG is one of my favorite bands ever and this song rocks

[coolscott7]

SWEET! I agree its the best VDGG song! After 30 years Iget to see the band! Thanks!

[cd4046]

Esta canción es parte de mí, no me imagino sin ella

[professoricon]

son usted el asesino o el ángel o el asesino o ...

[SchizoidWoman]

me encanta este tema

hammill(L)

[professoricon]

Salir antes de mi vídeo de Peter hammill este canto en solitario

[coffeeintheface]

Hell has an especially hot chamber reserved for spammers like you.

[SuperMegaAtheistMan]

Peter Hammill is a musical genius. Almost as godly as Steven Wilson (in my opinion), except that the instrumental sections of Peter Hammill's music aren't nearly as powerful and emotional as Steven Wilson's. Peter's lyrics are generally better, though. Both kick ass.

[johnarthurknight]

Please restore the missing section.Divide it into two.

[professoricon]

Done.

[massimotube]

this is my favourite song ever

[professoricon]

This is probably my favourite VDGG song also, and amongst my favourites by any artist. It's the only version there is on YouTube (that I could find).