BONGED

Two thirds of TOMTIT went to see the mighty BONG last week. There weren’t many people there, and we were supposed to take photographs but we didn’t. Bong played one continuous piece of music occasionally interspersed with some ominous recitation and what sounded like Gregorian chant. They were extraordinary, and we left straight afterwards: we’d got what we came for.

Listening to Bong is like finding yourself caught in the path of a tornado. Just as you resign yourself to being torn apart and thrown to the four corners of the Earth, the tornado stops, or rather it stops advancing and whirls and rages just a few inches from you. All you can do is watch, and feel your body shake.  Bong don’t rock, they reverberate; they are not heavy, they are dense, like stars, like the holes in space where stars used to be.

After a period of time which couldn’t necessarily be measured by human clocks (about forty minutes), the tornado receded, and we watched it go, ours jaws hanging open and our hair in a mess. It was a religious experience, the ancient religion of trees and the sun and knowing the awesome dread and wonder of nature. It also seemingly cured a bout of back ache that one of us had been experiencing.

So: fear, dread, wonder, vibrations, a spiritual awakening, a direct line to prehistory and neuromusculoskeletal therapy. Not bad for nine quid.