NEHTAR JUMPS ON THE BANOWAGON OF THE FUTURE

NEHTRR JUMPS on THE BANOWAGON OF THE FUTURE

PETER CRESCENTI

BY

Nektar's music and light theatre hails from the land of sauerkraut, but this story begins, in Philadelphia, the home of cream cheese. Now I never considered spending a birthday in Philly, but there I was that Friday afternoon, gearing to test the hype of this latest European sensation.

*"We like to stimulate imagination in people, and get them back to people instead of sheep." Look out Monty Hall, here comes Nektar> "The music we write is about life experiences. We try to stimulate other people's imaginations by not defining too much in our songs. Any person, in-any walk of life, can relate to the words. You just need a good imagination. Luckily, in America, people've got a good imagination."

What perception! In the country only three weeks, and already they've got us pegged. And in such strongholds of imagination as New York and St. Louis and Philadelphia, Nektar's colorful painting of sight and sound has been metamorphising normal doped-out teens into energetic ravers, snapped back to consciousness after endless months of downin" on Sabbath and Heep. The band is hijacking a rock public in desperate need of new and better thrills like no new invaders in recent memory, mostly on the strength of their Remember the Future album, a cosmic fairy tale about Bluebird's journey to an unnamed, unfriendly planet, where he befriends a blind boy, reveals his world's past to him, and then opens his eyes to the future. The story is open to many interpretations, allowing the listener to color in a well-lined sketch. All five musicians contribute lyrics, based on

the philosophy that we must believe in ourselves, explore ourselves and discover the I.

"We're not remembering the future. We're -forgetting that our children's children's children are going to have a very difficult time. We're throwing away things that maybe they're gonna need. We're polluting the air that they're gonna need to breathe. We're doing things because our egos feel "Well, we don't need to worry because God'll take care of them." But we have to think that we can change it. We can do something about it now, so that our children's children's children can help their children's children's children. If we don't do something about it now, they're not gonna live."

Nektar was squeezed from Destiny five years ago in Hamburg's Star Club. The Neks escaped to Germany, where they have become fave raves, from 1965 England, where it was tough surviving as a full-time rocker unless you were a Beatle, Stone or Kink — especially if you were, like bassist Mo Moore, in a band playing obscure songs of other groups. They've released Seven records in Germany, and they've managed to keep the original members together this long cuz they're a British/German space age Waltons. "Everybody involved with the group has to be a family. Otherwise you don't take enough care of each other."

The family is as tight as a Black Panther's clenched fist, including the five musicians, the four roadies (who assemble six tons of equipment for every performance), the perfectionist Vinnie (their German sound mixer), and Peter Hauke (their producer). Nektar performed in Philly's Tower Theatre on a night when BachmanTurner Overdrive was in town, takin" care of enough bizness to steal Nektar's sell-out, though a mob did show up for Nektar's blitzkrieg. At both gigs, the band proved their hype true, sucking me along like a waterfall pulling a raft, but rather than sending me plunging, their hypnotic collage floated me over the edge. Light master Mick Brockett is considered the band's fifth musician, and I won't argue because his dazzling display of lights and slides complement the band in such a way that I was able to concentrate on the light show, but still remain keenly aware of the music, and the two were so much in synch.

"Nektar is the drug of the Greek gods. It's the food they used to eat to give them magical powers. We try to give people a trip into imagination. A trip without drugs."

Depressing, rainy weather followed us from Phillly to Manhattan. The band wasn't playing till midnight, so keyboard whiz Taff Freeman and I headed down to the Village to buy some records. On the way there, Ken, the road manager, floored us with the news that Average White Band drummer Robbie McIntosh was killed the night before by poison junk. It was extra heavy on Taff because he had just seen his fellow Scotsman Robbie a few days before for the first time in eight years.

Back at the hotel, Taff called Mo and asked, "Did you hear about Robbie? Robbie's dead." Mo paled, thinking Freeman was talking about one of their roadies named Robbie. Taff set him straight, but after hanging up, Mo laid back on his bed, on fire from the initial shock, and silently shook for ten minutes.

A dose of Nektarmania had blanketed New York. In every record shop Taff and I went to, and on several street corners, people were talking about Nektar — the album, the concert, and the broadcast a New York radio station was doing of the show. Even the cab driver who drove us back to our hotel was Nektarized.

As usual, the band opened the show with "Remember the Future." ("If people come to see it, then you give it to "em straightaway. Then they sit down and listen to the rest of the music.") Then they played some older material, and a few tunes'from their next record, Down to Earth, an album exploring life in a circus. The audience jumped right into the music, screaming loud and long enough for two encores, a rare event at the Academy. And Nektar, throughout the entire two and one-half hour show, had the usually rowdy New York hprde so mesmerized that there wasn't a single scream of "boogie," the Academy war whoop. Nektar had cored the big Apple.