Ethereal Counterbalance #3
At the beginning of the year 2000 Rod was interviewed by Radio KFJC in the Los Altos Hills, California. He also premiered some hitherto unreleased tracks.
T.4 SEATTLE : November 3rd. 2000
And so, the next Terrastock fest' was in Seattle, Washington, the following year. The Flight the whole British contingent came in on was FLIGHT 49, also the name of a semi- improvised song of mine, recorded at the Earth Ritual Festival in Belgium in 1994 (with my old LIVE band) and released on 10" vinyl in 1997 as "Plug" ....("Gulp" spelt backwards)..... a few copies of which were actually available at the FIRST Terrastock fest' in Rhode Island !! So this time, instead of using "Desert Sands" as the 'lift-off' introduction, it just HAD to be "Flight 49" .... which naturally NOBODY else in this line-up knew. The Ethereal Counterbalance 'set' was to kick-off the 3-day festival early on Friday evening. I was asked by the stage manager what I needed, to which I replied "A pair of scissors and 6 chairs" (??) Well, the only way we could fit on the small stage would be if we all sat down, and the scissors were for Phil McMullen. I thought it would be a good idea if he introduced us and welcomed the crowd (who were still ariving) to Terrastock 4, and then cut the ribbon ... you know, how people open fetes and things. We then launched into this weird version of "Flight 49". From left to right onstage there was Paul Simmons (guitar) and Jon Guard (bass) of The Alchemysts, then Andy Ward ('special' kit, without a snare, kick drum or extra cymbals but with added tom toms, etc), Adrian Shaw (bass) and Nick Saloman (guitar) ... all of The Bevis Frond of course.
I was sat slightly in front of this gang, but by no means in a typical 'vocalists' stance. It was all very strange and I certainly wish Nick had been louder in the mix, but hopefully they could hear him better out front because we went down extremely well. I know that I can do better than this personally, but the band was amazing !!