By Jase Walker
Cosmic Dross is back in the Netherlands and after my last journey with HENGE in Melkweg, I am absolutely buzzed to be able to take another trip with these intergalactic emissaries. This time landing in Tivoli Vredenburg over in Utrecht, this will no doubt be another interesting exploration of the psychedelic reaches of the Galaxy and one’s own psyche.
A voice booms across the room signalling the start of the journey, pre-flight checks are clear and it’s time for blast off. All members are ready to go to introduce the willing yet possibly unwitting crowd to their unique brand of synthy weirdness. Apparently there’s a fairly big representation of non-humans here tonight also although it’s apparently unclear where they were from exactly.
I’ve already spent the first bunch of songs giggling like a madman at the band and the constant confused expression on the face of the soul I’ve managed to convince to join for this show tonight. ‘Ra’ weirdly reminds me a lot of Cyriak and their bizarre video creations along with accompanying bizarre distorted synthy backing. ‘Slingshot’ is where the crowd really starts amping up their dancing and whoever is doing lighting for this show is doing something I’ve never seen in this room before and leveraging the entire roof lighting that almost feels like we’re being abducted, par for the course I guess eh?
‘The Great Venusian Apocalypse’ leans into more rave and techno territory as it takes on a much darker tone that wouldn’t be out of place being blasted from the speakers in some dingy Berlin nightclub. I’ve also taken a look around and there’s a significant amount of people wearing all sorts of odd tinfoil hats or horns and I think much like Gnome, HENGE may be seeing the start of a fan made in-joke.
‘Get A Wriggle On’ amps up the danceable music another notch and I can’t help but surrender to it and bounce around like an idiot because this absolutely demands it! Every now and then the lines between where the rock stuff starts and the synth begins is blurred, one moment it’s HENGE rocking out and the next the journey takes me into a dingy basement bar where I can’t see shit but the music is shaking my entire body. HENGE impresses on the fact that their live shows are a psychedelic experience as much as a performance and I can guarantee that is exactly how it’s felt both times I’ve seen them.
A band that are truly “out there” and seem very quirky at first but as my company for tonight will attest, it starts out as ‘What the fuck is this!?’ then very quickly becomes ‘Alright I get it, let’s fucking dance’. There’s literally not a soul in this venue that isn’t fully cutting loose by the time ‘Ascending’ comes on, front to back everyone tonight is shaking their asses or getting a wriggle on as it were.
And finally playing out on a peace anthem of ‘Demilitarise’, chanting to remove weapons of war while the synth player holds up placards of the words and succeeds at not falling off with the rhythm. To finish the song Zpor jumps into the crowd and ends up with a massive conga line following him, an incredible finish.
HENGE once again put on one of the most fun shows I’ve been to and I can say without a doubt that I’ve convinced more than a few people in the process to join me again next year for their Melkweg show. What an incredible band, so much fun and I am endlessly thankful to live in the same era as them, after all it’s taken millions of years.