Memory:David Ward
I still fondly remember a Gentle Giant concert in Ottawa in November 1974. I was somewhat familiar with "The Power and the Glory" and "Octopus", but nothing could have prepared me for what I heard that evening!
The show opened with a slide show countdown and the band let loose with "Cogs in Cogs". Here were 5 guys playing exceedingly complex music, yet they all had smiles on their faces and often broke into a strange foot-stomping choreography.
There were lots of highlights: John Weathers' powerful drumming (I kept imagining a blacksmith at his anvil), Ray Shulman's charisma (projected throughout a concrete hockey arena), the acoustic guitar section with Gary Green, Kerry Minnear's amazing Boys in the Band and Derek Shulman's frantic "conducting".
And I will never forget Derek Shulman introducing the band. He named everyone in turn and when it came to himself, he said "... and me? I'm Robert Plant!", shook the mike stand and laughed with everyone else.