Gong – Live in Leeds 2025 – “The band is a mind-altering drug”

Live at The Irish Centre, Leeds 21st November 2025

With another double header tour, following last year with Ozric Tentacles, Gong cook up a psychedelic trip of an evening. As Kavus Torabi says – “Leeds is the only town with two Es and LSD”. This time the intergalactic copilots are Henge.

Henge knocked me down when I first saw them in 2018 and tonight is the same great spirit, playful invention and party beats. Three aliens and a human, they are more subversive than Gong, in their deconstruction of gig conventions by combining gentle pantomime, space-lore and rave beats. Grinning and dancing, the beats grew into something very like human rave from Planet Earth and the audience were grinning widely before things got fun-serious with a dance chant demanding demilitarisation and colonising space. Too right!

Splitting time equally, Gong had seventy-five minutes, as did Henge. In that time, they flew high above the limits of most bands – as one of the songs goes, “My Guitar Is A Spaceship”. Gong is a concept, a dream that was born in the Canterbury Scene from Daevid Allen and drew in many others. There are many Gong albums without Allen and many Allen albums without Gong. Here, the band Allen worked with last continue the dream. There’s no longer a man in a silly hat, there’s nothing about pixies or teapots but the spirit of love and of gentle cosmic travel lives on. Torabi grins and tells us “We won’t always be able to do this but we can right now, isn’t it great”. As front-man he embodies a gratefulness for the ever-present now alongside his musicianship.

This has no lightshow, none of the back-projection or twirling dancer they’ve had before – just an unlikely line-up of four men in black at the front and a drummer at the back. Every one of the men are highly skilled prog rock practitioners and they mesh into a wild mind-altering sound that travels through recent songs, carrying the lyrics but mostly churning detailed psychotropic sound. On the right is Fabio Golfetti, mostly providing a gliss drone with his magic stick and slide while looking as unlike a lysergic rock god as is possible. Next to him is Dave Sturt on fretless bass, providing the cool look and rhythm that wants to be lead. Kavus is front and centre, shock of hair and angular limbs conveying joy. To the left is Ian East, alternating between clarinet and saxophone, playing a full part, not the comment and chorus of most wind instruments. Cheb Nettles, at the back, is versatile and in every space.

As the short set progresses, songs get longer and more involved till the band are deep into a jam with the horn silent, bass thrumming, Fabio making drone sounds, Kavus banging his strings with a stick and the audience are hanging on the sound, which slowly moves into the only “Old Gong” piece of the night, ‘Master Builder’, with its chanting chorus; “za-i, za-o, ma-i, ma-o, ta-i, ta-o”. The crowd lap it up and the evening ends in a frenzy. This is no longer the Gong of old and only one Daevid Allen song remains in the set, yet the spirit is the same, if more furiously rocking. The band continues to be a mind-altering drug as well as a showcase for the best musicianship and a tribute to a gentle, wise and silly spirit. In their current state they are unmissable and if you have any love for psychedelic music, a trek of any distance will be worth it.