# Gentle Giant



## Guest

Had the opportunity and good fortune to see these guys live. They opened for Renaissance. Great musicians, writers and singers. Don't know why the drummer (John Wethers) insists on wearing an Oakland A's uniform onstage. He did when I saw them as well. To hear this playing at 120 dB right in front of you causes musical epiphanies. Certainly changed how I saw music and performance--chamber rock.


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## Weston

I want to like this post twelve times. One of the all time greatest, and of course the live samples never seem to quite do them justice.

I'll never forget being in college in a dorm with a small group of friends listening to the _very_ weird "So Sincere" with the door open (which sounds considerably cleaner freakier on the album of course). A music student walked by, stopped intrigued, and asked if it was -- I don't remember, Harry Partch or some other avant garde composer. About that time the drums kicked in, and he walked off in contempt. What the heck? You were intrigued before. Why suddenly dismiss it because of the drum kit?

I never felt anyone else got quite as way out as they did without sounding just silly and experimental as in the some of the RIO bands for instance.. There's was an unequaled polished complexity that never fails to satisfy to this day.


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## Albert7

Thanks for sharing. Rather fascinating .


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## GioCar

Is Gentle Giant's music classical music? 

Maybe a new passionate debate?

I am very fond of them (as of most prog music of that period) but to me their music doesn't sound "classical", as much as King Crimson's or Itullian's friend's...

This thread should be moved in the non-classical music forum imo.


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## AnotherSpin

Oh, I loved Free Hand, In a Glass House, The Power and The Glory, Interview when I was a school boy.


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## Guest

I still wonder how many instruments these guys play. When I saw them, there was a point where they all played recorders--a recorder quintet. Derek Shulman, the lead singer, played the sax and, at one point, brought out a big, white double bass. In fact, in that last clip when Ray Shulman (normally the bassist) picks up the guitar to duet with Gary Green, you'll see Derek on bass guitar when the band joins back in. The band was a sextet originally--another Shulman brother, Phillip, played the trumpet (and god only knows what else). I think he left after the "Acquiring the Taste" album. Kerry Minnear, the keyboardist, played so many instruments, I can't remember them all. And the drummer, xylophonist, marimbaist is John Weathers not Whethers as I said earlier--sorry. We'll probably never see another band like this again. They were rare enough in the days of prog rock and certainly there is nothing like them now. Glad I saw them.


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## GKC

"Octopus" is a strong album, too, I think. 
We used to play the first track off of Power and the Glory in my band in the 70's. I can't think of the name of it. It starts out with a syncopated two-note pattern on the electric piano. Used to drive the dancers crazy.
We did another Gentle Giant song, but the name escapes me, too.


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## padraic

One of the finest, most underrated prog rock bands there ever was.

Though is this thread in the right section?


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