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February 2005 in London: The Starship was on the verge of disintegrating in midair, but yet it was steadfastly making its way toward the Saturn. This provides a report of the DKT/MC5 and Sun Ra Arkestra concert on February 25, 2005 at Royal Festival Hall in London.
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Marshall Allen and the Arkestra came on to the stage first . It was my first time seeing them live. Their costumes are humorous and beautiful, making me anticipate something exciting and fun will happen. At this point I was supposing the two groups, i.e. DKT/MC5 and Arkestra, would play together throughout the show, so I was just waiting expecting Wayne and others coming out soon, when Arkestra abruptly went into the first song taking me by surprise.
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To such an elementary listener of Sun Ra, however, their performance was extremely enjoyable and great fun. This may partly because the degree of "free" was lower than I had expected as it was never abstruse nor esoteric kind of music, so I could freely get into their tunes. (In the photo above, the man standing on the left is Mr. Marshall Allen.)
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The way they produced the show was fun. Sometimes they were theatrical, or the brass players marched down the auditorium while the singer singing "Sun Ra is a mystery!", and at a point they made the audience sing along. They also played a few numbers in fairly standard style - all exquisite pieces of cool, superb rhythm. The acoustics of the hall was also excellent, which made each piece of sound literally shining like a star.
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The man above was the singer and in charge of MC. His hat was in the shape of a star.
It was great to have a chance to know such futuristic and enjoyable music. It reminded me of what Dennis Thompson once said in an interview about the free jazz giant John Coltrane, " A guy like 'Trane to me, musically, is like Rembrandt is in the art world. He's a guy that just gave it all. " The music of Sun Ra Arkestra was universal and comprehensive, regardless of time and space.