Flashing lights, the ground vibrating beneath your feet and cosmic mutated frequencies. That’s what the night had in store for the humans of Nottingham as alien rock-rave band took over The Bodega…
They’ve had a massively successful year having released their album Attention Earth! Embarking on their first UK tour, the quartet consists of front man Zpor with a plasma globe headgear and brandishing an illuminated staff; Goo, a grey-skulled Venusian; Nom, the squid-headed Xylanthian and, finally, the band’s only human Kent Paxman. They seem to have built up quite the reputation among the humans as they are welcomed with reberverating cheers.
Zpor and his trio are pleased with the reception. Prior to the show he tells me: “The crowds in Exeter, Bristol, London, Brighton, Newcastle and Sheffield were particularly receptive to the mutated frequencies of cosmic dross. We have experienced a proliferation of joy among humans and have been successful in catalysing euphoria with our experiments on your species.” He expected the Nottingham gathering to be just as welcoming, and it seems they did not fail him.
Starting off the night with the track Unit Of Power before moving onto the quirky, catchy Monolith and then sixties-esque New Planet, the group and the audiences keep up their energy throughout the two-hour show as they perform their standout and most commercially successful track In Praise of Water, getting the whole room dancing before finishing with Demilitarise.
Henge seems to have mastered the art of balancing psychedelic, trance-inducing music – which in Zpor’s own words hold the secret to “saving mankind” with uplifting and unifying messages. And these messages definitely seem to strike a chord with the band’s loving human fanbase. The foursome’s music unites you. As Zpor, who believes that human beings are a lifeform with great potential, calls upon us to demilitarise, unite and colonise space to save our species from mass extinction, I find myself agreeing with the idea.
The band makes music that pulls you in and keeps you there. According to Zpor, Henge hope to transform more humans with their hypnotic cosmic dross by travelling to more parts of Earth. At the end of the night, I find myself wanting to be transported back to the strange and wonderful land of their music.
Henge performed at The Bodega on Thursday 29 November 2019
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