After about 25 years of hearing the band’s name, but never actually hearing them, over the last 6 months I have been getting to know Gentle Giant. I thought I would make my thoughts on them to be my first posting on this forum.

To put this in context, my own musical collection is vast Amon Duul sits nicely next to Abba, Bartok next to the Beach Boys, The Commodores next to Comus etc… you get the picture.

My growing exposure to Giant however is seeing me increasing view them as one of, if not the greatest bands ever. Despite not knowing a chorus if it jumped up and bite them in the codpiece, their musicianship and song-construction skills are at times surpass their peers like Yes and Crimson.

My favourite albums at the moment seem to be Free Hand and Three Friends. I have just watched (for the umpteenth time now) the German TV show video and it is just perplexing the sheer volume of talented musicianship on the stage.

Here is assessment of the band thus far:

Imagine a song where band members playing five different songs simultaneously (songs all based around medieval cord sequences), then imagine and albums worth of this sort of song on tape. Cut the tape up and scatter the thousands of pieces back together – there you have part of Giant album. Moreover, they can play it live, note for note. Each band member playing every instrument and looking incredibly sexy at the same time.

I’m not sure how things would have turned out if I’d have picked up Gentle Giant instead of The Lamb 30 years ago (thus starting my on this incredible path we are all on) but I’m glad I’ve finally discovered them now.