Tuesday 1 October 2025
RNCM, Manchester
Nearly 60 years since first playing in Manchester, Hammill is still a supreme communicator and a powerful performer
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‘The hits just keep on coming’, quipped Peter Hammill early in his set at the RNCM in Manchester this evening. In 2013, when Guy Garvey interviewed Hammill for a documentary, The Art of Sequencing, which I produced for BBC Radio 4, he asked whether he would sequence his albums by starting with the hits. ‘What hits?!’ replied Hammill. Although not known for chart success, Hammill’s music, both as a solo artist and as leader of Van der Graaf Generator, has been part of the fabric of many lives and internal imaginative landscapes over several decades. The RNCM Concert Hall was packed with appreciative fans, who listened in spellbound silence, mesmerised by the power and conviction of Hammill’s performance.
Last time Hammill was in Manchester, in February 2022, he performed with Van der Graaf Generator, but this time he took the brave but ultimately justified decision to perform completely solo, alternating between piano and guitar. His instrumental playing was compelling, as was his guitar playing on an acoustic guitar. He had to keep retuning his guitar as he hit it so hard. The RNCM’s Steinway grand piano survived his pounding, even in the early highlight, The Lie (Bernini’s Saint Theresa) from The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage (1974), which starts with the line, ‘Genuflection, erection in church’, still startling over 50 years later. Twenty years ago, he was described as ‘the Hendrix of the voice’, and his instrument has inevitably changed as he reaches the latter half of his seventies, but it remains remarkably powerful, and his artistry and ability to communicate remain gloriously intact.
Hammill was always wise beyond his years, a deep and poetic thinker, but now some of his lyrics have gained added resonance as time passes. In Autumn from Over (1977), he wrote,
So here we are, alone –
Our children have grown up and moved away.
Living their own lives, they say…
It all seems very strange to me.
He was a young man when he wrote these prescient words, with which many in the audience would no doubt have deeply empathised. And the grim ending to Still Life from the 1976 Van der Graaf album of the same name, when Hammill embraces death, perhaps means more to Hammill and his fans now. Despite these sentiments, this was a life-affirming experience. Hammill seemed genuinely surprised to reflect that he played his encore, Afterwards, from Van der Graaf’s debut album The Aerosol Grey Machine in Manchester 57 years ago in 1968, when the Hendrix of the voice supported the Hendrix on guitar. Two well-deserved standing ovations confirmed that the audience shared Hammill’s evident pleasure in performing for us.
More about Peter Hammill…
A great review of a great performance. Given that PH has hinted these may be his final shows, so many of his lyrics carried even greater levels of poignancy. As you say, Autumn was one and for me, Time To Burn, Curtains (Tommy and Sylvia moving on to who knows what) and Ophelia, with the images of the river flowing endlessly like time itself and, of course, Peter’s nod to the start of his professional career in Manchester, Afterwards, were others. That he can produce a performance so exhilarating and of such intensity at his age is remarkable. He was as good as I’ve ever seen him and the slightly more world weary, grey haired, middle aged me was as awestruck by Peter’s performance as I was as a 20 year old when I first saw him at the QEH in London 37 years ago.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I also loved Ophelia – I should probably have mentioned it in my review!
Best wishes
Nick