Memory:Werner Ludwig
It was 1974. I was 17 and my friend from school, who was a true progrock pioneer, asked me with a shrewd smile on his face if I knew GG. Who?, I asked. He didn't say a word and played 'In a Glass House'. I remember being completely floored and it took me quite a while to recover. (Like my friend allready knew I'd fall for GG, hence the mysterious smile...) Who were these guys who could play this wonderful music on all these different instruments? Soon I was the proud owner of all GG albums, and the most important thing at that time seemed to be seeing them play live. But that just could take a little while.
It was 1976 when my friend told me with that same smile that GG would be on TV! We watched the show staring in disbelief; it was the best band we had ever seen, but what was wrong with the audience? Were they seriously drugged? Or even worse? We then decided that they must have been stunned just like the two of us, too amazed to speak for a while.
It was 1977. I was in the army and a friend who was reading a music magazine suddenly said: hey, I've seen these guys play at a festival in Breda. I looked in the magazine and found out that he meant GG. WHAT!?, you actually saw GG? Sure!, man, it looked just like a musical war. I was so envious I could kill the guy. Why didn't I know of this? What a missed opportunity!
It was 1979. Me and all my GG albums had moved to the big city and one fine day a bunch of friends visited me and we played the live Playing the Fool album. One of them said: what's this?, they sound like these guys I saw on the festival in Delft a few years ago. Dangerously calm I asked him if he still knew the name of that band and I showed him the album cover and asked: these guys, by coincedence? Yeah, Gentle Giant. Man, they rocked! Fucking great...
It was 2005. One day I walked into a record store and suddenly four Gentle Giants were staring at me from a DVD cover. I could not believe it. A GG DVD? I gotta have this thing, no matter what it costs! At home I put the DVD in the player and I could not believed my eyes, this was the same concert that we saw 30 years ago on that sunny Saturday afternoon on a black and white TV screen...
Sadly enough, I never had the privilege to see GG play live, but this DVD was at least a consolation for all my missed GG concerts over the years.
Ah, memories of old days...