I really really wanted to share (or probably more accurately show off about the show) the hundreds of thoughts / comments / ideas that zipped through my head about the music performed by The Necks last night. But they didn’t give me chance, you have to suspend any critical faculties you might have and get carried away in the wash.

Playing their usual two sets in one show (50 minutes or so a song) these three unassuming middle aged gents (piano, drums / percussion and some double bass / cello thingy) created two incredible pieces of music that flowed . The pianist had his back to the bassist and the drummer and there seemed to be no communication between any of the players at all; how can you improvise and feed off each other with this level of musicality and seamlessness without communication? For most of the performance time I found myself doing one of those smiles that you probably can’t see (y’know what I mean, like without baring teeth and without moving my lips?) and every so often my cheeks would involuntarily lift my mouth into grins. Seriously, they were that good.

Even though both pieces were untitled improvisational pieces I managed to invent (crap) titles for them (”Rain” and “Mayfly”) from the massive overload of visual imagery I got from the songs. “Rain” began with a lone rippling piano line (and the way he hit the keys you could hear both the notes and the soft percussive patter of the drops on the window. A handful of beads / shells on a cymbal providing a scratchy water on a cold tin roof and then�I don’t know I got lost in the song.

Both me and my friend were scanning each player towards “Rain”s conclusion to see where the odd alarm type sample was coming from worrying that the building was actually on fire, it was the upstroke of the beater he was using which he deftly caught the underside of a cymbal. The way he dragged his hand down the upright drum stick on the snare skin drawing a deep drone noise or the way he banged a upside down preacher hat shaped cymbal with his hand inside it creating reverberating electronic wave noises. Or the warmth of the bass playing (he had a slim Jah Wobble look about him) that brought images of bodies within my imaginary rain beaten room. In the two songs he swung between minimalism, funky lopped bassline to noisy dissonant bowing at the strings. I could go on for hours, its all coming back to me this morning.

I hope that when they said they liked playing the venue and they’d be back they were serious.