Nektar 2/11/20 The Iron Horse Northampton

Welcome to this installment of the Prog Blog. Nektar is a second wave prog outfit from the UK. Second wave meaning they arrived in the early to mid 70s as the prog train was rolling. Prog gets a bad rap, sure there were the white bellbottoms, the inane lyrics (" mountains come out of the sky and....stand there"). I argue, that for every punchline, there is an equal and opposite upside. How many of us have had our musical consciousness formed by the bucolic pastoralism of Jethro Tull, the sourkrautrock motorik of Can, the sinister drone of King Crimson, the classical trappings of ELP, or the concept-laden behemoth known as The Pink Floyd. Nektar had no hits, they had no inflatable pigs flying over Giants stadium, their keyboards didn't shoot fire, they had no flautist in tights, but they had some touches of much that is prog. Reading their back story, it seemed that their lack of success could be attributed to poor marketing and across the pond translation of the 1973 record Remember The Future. So happy am I to report their resurfacing and landing in Northampton. As with last year's gray and grizzled crowd watching Nick Mason, this rapt crowd hung on every guitar solo. The group had three original members, drums and two guitars/vocals. Joined by another guitarist and keys they plowed through some of their compelling hitless catalog. Trippy video backdrop was tasteful, with one sequence paying homage to musicians ( influences) who have died. An added bonus was that the main vocalist sounded eerily like Robert Wyatt. They were promoting a new record, The Other Side from which an excellent encore I'm On Fire came from. Remember the Future, hmm, now that's a concept.