Rocking Horse Music Club at Trading Boundaries in Sussex
For a man living in the small town of Pittsfield, New Hampshire, Rocking Horse Music Club’s Brian Coombes is astonishingly well connected when it comes to all things Genesis. A close personal friend of Anthony Philips; a years-long working relationship with Steve Hackett and several of his assorted acolytes, and now a collaboration that brings the great Tony Banks back into the public limelight for the first time in aeons. It’s really quite remarkable.
Ahead of the gig, Coombes explained to Proghurst how these relationships came about:
“My direct connection with Genesis members began with Ant Phillips. I was producing a record for an artist years ago and thought 12 string guitar would work well on the song. I asked myself: “Who do I know that plays 12 string guitar?” I immediately thought of one of my favourites, Anthony Phillips.”
“Though a mutual friend in the business I was able to get in touch with Ant. He agreed to play on the record and my friendship with Ant grew from that point. From there, I met Dale Newman and produced two records with him. We did one at the Farm [studios], where I met Tony Banks for the first time. We met Richard Macphail at our Ant Phillips tribute shows at Trading Boundaries back in 2019. Steve Hackett played on the Ant tribute album. I had met Steve through Rob Townsend, who plays in Steve’s band; he had done a few sessions for me.”
The end result is an excellent new album The Last Pink Glow. It tells the story of a recently discovered unfinished novella of the same name by Jack Kerouac, which the Rocking Horse Music Club collective premiered at the Sussex outpost that is Trading Boundaries this November.
And the “Club” really is a collective. Tonight they fielded no fewer than nine musicians, including at one stage four guitarists – the “guitarmy”, as Coombes proudly labelled them – who together presented a most beautifully-layered recital of the key moments from the new album, along with a few older favourites.
The set was narrated throughout both by Coombes and lead singer Justin Cohn, drawing the contextual threads together for those unfamiliar with the novel. The new songs subtly blend a range of styles, from the raucous rock’n’roll anger of Big City Small Town Blues to the deeply progressive album closer The Last Pink Glow.
Standout track of the new set was probably an acoustic version of the Tony Banks co-penned This Haunted Life, which Cohn delivered with extraordinary sensitivity. But, along with the beautiful Ant Phillips classic Paperchase, perhaps the most poignant song was the concert closer, Silver Song.
Dedicated to the memory of the late Richard MacPhail, it was originally penned in 1970 by Philips with Mike Rutherford to mark the leaving (of the very first Genesis line up) of drummer and schoolfriend John Silver. On that occasion, Silver was departing to go and study in the US. On this occasion the band were marking an altogether more celestial departure. Those of you familiar with the song and the lyrics, though, will understand just how appropriate a choice it was to mark Richard MacPhail’s sad passing.
In many ways Trading Boundaries was the perfect venue for tonight’s intimate showcase: downstairs is an atmospheric candlelit restaurant, featuring a small stage scarcely big enough to house tonight’s nine-man ensemble.
Many of prog rock’s royalty make time to perform low-key gigs there. Where else can you see the likes of Steve Hackett or Steve Hogarth or Focus perform intimate sets to little more than a hundred committed fans in such convivial of surroundings? It’s so intimate that at times it can feel like you have a world-famous rock musician playing for your own personal pleasure. And when you consider that upstairs houses Roger Dean’s art gallery where you can often discuss his life’s work with the man in person, it makes Trading Boundaries a true place of prog pilgrimage.
Sadly, your correspondent could only make the first of Rocking Horse Music Club’s two-night Trading Boundaries residency – the second night being the one where Sir Tony of Banks was due to put in a personal appearance of his own, and do a fan Q&A.
