Gentle Giant
„Playing The Fool Live“
Progressive Rock. Reissue, Remaster 2025 (1977)
V2/Bertus kindly made this CD available to me.

They say every prog head not only needs to know the holy trinity of progressive rock, consisting of King Crimson, YES and Gentle Giant, but also needs to own it on vinyl or at least CD. I admit that I like very few YES albums, only King Crimson's debut album "In The Court Of The Crimson King" and none of Gentle Giant's. With Gentle Giant, this is partly because the melodies are complex, not always accessible and often feature more than one singer. And that doesn't always sound particularly clean live. Even if my opinion puts me on the sidelines, I'm more enthusiastic about old Genesis, Pink Floyd, Mike Oldfield (70s) and a little bit of YES. But that doesn't mean Gentle Giant is a bad band at all, quite the opposite. They just don't strike a chord with me. I do like the more melodic parts, but they're too rare for me. At this stage of their career, Gentle Giant is more than just a progressive rock band. The musical and lyrical structures are simply too complex for that; the army of instruments and the partially polyphonic vocals alone are more than prog rock.

Gentle Giant was active until 1980 and was founded in 1970 by the brothers Ray, Derek, and Phil Shulman in England. Their goal was to expand existing music. Five of the six members sang, and at times they used up to 30 instruments. Gentle Giant juggled complex arrangements, even live, with astonishing ease. This phase lasted until 1976, but the attempted commercialization and simplification of the music they played did not bring the hoped-for success. The band disbanded in 1980.

Music is always a matter of taste, and therefore, if I were to award points, I would give the band and the album the highest score. The musicians' skill and the complexity are undeniable. However, that doesn't change the fact that I personally don't find it relatable. 

The photos are all from my CD. The rights to all motifs, logos, texts and fonts that can be seen in the photos are of course owned by the copyright holder.