To mark the 40th anniversary of their 1982 debut album, ‘Epic Garden Music’, the band reformed with original members Garce (vocals), Nigel Pollard (drums), Cliff Silver (acoustic guitar), Tristan Garel-Funk (bass) alongside Tony McGuinness (guitar) to play the tracklist in its entirety for the first time ever before another set from their wider back catalogue.
After the band performed the instrumental track ‘ART (By Me)’, Garce arrived onstage to start side A of the debut album with ‘Echoplay’; shortly after original bass player Cliff Silver arrived onstage to play acoustic guitar for ‘Clint’. Garce then introduced Jack who stepped into the shoes of original member David Wood for the saxophone parts in ‘Lope’.
The band then moved onto side B, with ‘Cloud 9’ and ‘Alice (Isn’t Playing)’. SLAG then left the stage for a short interval before returning to perform a longer set of back catalogue tracks from their history.
They began the second set with songs from ‘Feeding The Flame’ and ‘Headland’ with ‘In Flux’, ‘Alaska’ and ‘Vendetta’. They also played from their newer material with 2008’s ‘Mission Creep’ playing ‘Biblical Crows’ and a single recorded in 2020 during lockdown ‘Asylum Town’. They then returned to older material with ‘Sleep (Is For Everyone)’ and 1987 ‘The Mirror Test’ with ‘Seven Kinds Of Sun’.
The band returned for an encore of ‘50:50’, ‘Imagination’ and ‘Colourless Dream’, the latter of which was featured in a recent Andy Warhol documentary.
03/04/22: Sad Lovers & Giants @ The Lexington, London.
Photos © Ayisha Khan.
© Ayisha Khan.