SOUNDTRACK: VOIVOD-Lost Society (2020).
Voivod have been around for over 30 years. In that time, they’ve releases only four lives albums. The first one was from the period when their original and current singer had departed, so that doesn’t really count. In 2011 they released Warriors of Ice, a live album that featured the reunited original lineup minus deceased guitarist Piggy. The third was a limited release from the 2011 Roadburn Festival.
Thus, we have this new release to acknowledge the excellence of their 2018 album The Wake. This show was recorded at Quebec City Summer Fest on July 13, 2019. I saw them on this tour on April 5, 2019. The setlist was largely the same, although they played more in their hometown (and I would have loved to see “Astronomy Domine”).
Being in front of a hometown crowd has the band fully energized. It also allows Snake to speak French to the audience, which is fun.
Most of Voivod’s music is really complicated and difficult (the chords that Piggy and now Chewy came up with are pretty hard to imagine). And yet they play everything perfectly. There’s not a lot of room for jamming when the songs are this tight and complex, but it’s clear the band are enjoying themselves anyway.
Since this is touring their new album, the majority of songs (4) are from it with two more songs from their 2016 EP Post Society. The rest of the set is pretty much a song from each of the albums prior to 1993 (excluding the album with the best name: Rrröööaaarrr).
They interfile the new songs with the older ones, and it feels really seamless. This shows how much of a student of Piggy new guitarist Chewy turned out to be.
The few times that Snake speaks in English, he says that Angel Rat’s “The Prow” is “time to dance time to party have fun” something one wouldn’t expect to do at a Voivod show, but compared to their other songs, it is pretty dancey.
My favorite Voivod album (aside from The Wake, which is really outstanding) is Nothingface, so I was really excited to hear “Into My Hypercube” and to hear that Rocky’s bass sounded just right.
Their older stuff is a little less complex and proggy so a song like 1987’s “Overreaction” is a bit heavier and straight ahead.
One of the more entertaining moments is during the opening of “The Lost Machine” where Snake stands between Chewy and Rocky and waves his arms to strum the chords first guitar, then bass, then guitar then bass, etc.
It is strange to think that this is only one-half of the classic line up. In fact, drummer Away is the only person to have never left the band. I assumed that when Piggy died, there was no point in continuing, but these replacements were really great.
And, Snake makes sure we never forget Piggy. They end every show with the song that has the same name as the band. And before they play it, he starts a chant “Piggy! Piggy!” In this live recording, you can hear the audience screaming along to “voivod,” a nonsensical word that remains strong thirty-five years on.
The setlist for the album is at the bottom of the post. I sure hope they tour around here again someday.
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I don’t recall when I started watching Red Dwarf–some time in the 90s, I suspect. I don’t even know if the show was ever very poplar here in the States, so it’s kind of a surprise that these two Red Dwarf novels even had a U.S. release. But they did. And I bought them (and read them, I think, although it’s all new to me 30 years later) sometime when they came out.
So Grant Naylor is the cleverly combined names of Rob Grant and Doug Naylor–back when they were working together (I’m not sure why one of them left). They penned two Red Dwarf books together, then they each wrote a Red Dwarf book separately.
This first one is basically an expanded version of some of the episodes from the first and second season.
Most of the jokes from the episodes are present here–so it’s easy to picture the characters saying the lines. But there’s also a ton of new stuff. Much of it fleshes out things that happened in the show, but still other things are brand new.
The book starts with the death of a Red Dwarf crew member. He is now a hologram and rather than being excited about being alive, he is horrified to think of all the things his wife will get up to now that he is dead but aware of what is happening. We also meet another man who is about to die–this time by suicide. He is in debt for a lot of money and decided it was better than being beaten to death by the men he owed money to.
Turns out, this man outranked the first man and since the Red Dwarf mining ship could only support one hologram, this man was brought back at the expense of the first one. A lot of ground is covered in these first two chapters and we haven’t even met any of the main characters of the show yet.
Dave Lister comes along in Chapter 3. For those unfamiliar with the show, Dave Lister is the main character and also the last human being alive. In the show he is three million years into deep space. But he had been in stasis so he is only 27 when he is brought out and told the news that everyone is dead.
But as the book starts, Lister is miserable on a planet Mimas. He got really drunk at his birthday party in Liverpool and, by the end of the night, he was on a planet very far from home with no money to get back. (more…)
