The Orb and Ozric Tentacles London Concert 2024

As the globe teeters on the edge of World War III, now was the time to go and see 90s legends The Orb and Ozric Tentacles at the Forum in Kentish Town. Storm Darragh was lashing the cold unforgiving streets of North London, but thankfully (cheers to O2 and Ades) we bypassed the long winding freezing queue which seemed to be some kind of wicked rain swept wind tunnel.

Even crusties age, and there were a few of them milling around with walking sticks. In these sanitised times, there was no plume of ganja smoke hanging over the venue, and no Camberwell carrots in view. The Orb, known for their ambient soundscapes mixed with pulsing meandering rhythms, and Ozric Tentacles, with their blend of instrumental psychedelic rock, ethnic beats, and spacey soundscapes, have joined forces to offer their unique brand of audiovisual sensory overload to their stalwart fans. Memories of far-flung bong hazed days, shrooms, peyote, acid and the old Ebeneezer goodstuff — Pink Fluffy Clouds, Strangeitude, a Sploosh into the fucking weirded out void of chaos theory these guys were and still are the pinnacle of underground psych-dance trance culture.

The Orb’s visuals along with the thumping meandering beat were out of this world, an amazing computerised melee of audio punches hitting the membrane at just the right spot.

Through a weird type of osmosis, Ozric Tentacles somehow appeared on stage after the profound Orb were taken up into the heavens by a mysterious shimmering silver UFOrb craft. The birth of Ozric Tentacles was witnessed at a campfire at the Stonehenge free festival in 1983. It was there that composer and band leader Ed Wynne (guitar & keyboards), and brother Roly Wynne (bass), who were performing in a group known at the time as ‘Bolshem People’, along with drummer Nick ‘Tig’ Van Gelder (Jamiroquai), stumbled upon keyboardist Joie Hinton. After a session of warming their bones and discussing imaginary breakfast cereals, the group went to perform an impromptu late jam session. Over the course of what became an epic six-hour performance, an audience member inquired as to the name of the band. Randomly thinking back to the group’s former conversation, visions of ridiculous mythical mueslis entered Ed’s mind, and consequently he replied; “Ozric Tentacles”.

On Saturday night Ed Wynne was the diviner, as always he has been the stalwart Druidic king of Ozric throughout the years, and his Ibanez guitars along with his trusty psychedelic effects rack and wah wah were conducting the orchestra of Tentacles into a whole new universe of frenzied habromania and ophidian slithering wonders. Only the ancient trees in some tanglery forest know what Ed has seen and done, his spiritual Celtic essence is a testament to prehistoric lay lines and massive rocks stuck into the heaving, vibrating earth. The band has seen many line-up changes over the years, even having their studio equipment going up in flames, but the core has stayed on the path to enlightenment, to kundalini spinning their chakras and their audience’s chakras to maximum cosmopoietic Dionysian states of being.

Aldous Huxley talked about altered states of consciousness, and this psychagogic experience was the epitome of this state of mind, to free one’s self completely and to let one’s essence be taken into the maelstrom of controlled chaos. This is the only way to really describe Ozric Tentacles, because through the master druid Ed Wynne and his crew, including the ethereal flautist Saskia, they seem to skirt the edges of chaos and the void, transcending dimensions through sound and vibration.

• The Orb and Ozric Tentacles
• The Forum, Kentish Town, London
• December 7, 2024
• Rating: 4.6/5

Photo credit: Adrian