Death seems to have done Hotblack Desiato a power of good. There were those who feared that Desiato's decision to spend a year dead as a tax dodge might have diminished the power of the plutonium rock band that makes the loudest noise ever recorded by intergalactic science. But this Disaster Area performance revealed beyond doubt that his animation is no longer suspended.

I watched from a Very Important Life-forms Enclosure (or VILE) some 35 miles from the speaker silos. Before the show, some of the more sensitive guests were worried that we might be a little too close, but the VILE structure easily withstood the shock waves emanating from Keith Satellite's Megabang drum complex. It was good to know that Keith was back, months of therapy on Santraginus V having convinced him that his friends the pebbles would wait for him while he went out on tour.

Desiato, too, is now back at his (literally) planet-shattering best. Although the band hired the best mediums available to transmit his musical thoughts while he was in tax exile from the land of the living, he's a better photon-ajuitar player when he's alive, as could be seen from the cracks in the planet's crust caused by his scything solo on 'Come On Baby, Split My Atoms'. Singer Elmer Geddon has also now thankfully recoved from the delusion that convinced him that he was a fish, as could be detected from the new song '(Baby Let Me Be Your) Duck-Billed Platypus'.

All of Disaster Area's new material is undeniably powerful, as befits the band whose amplifiers have been know to violate interplanetary strategic arms limitation treaties. 'Heavy Metal Man', their tribute to the unknown robot who sacrificed himself by piloting their stunt spaceship into a star during the Kakrafoon show on their last tour, moved many guests in the VILE to tears. It also moved some others to vomiting, or internal bleeding, due to the extreme sonic frequencies generated by Desiato. But few who hear the song will be able to forget it, no matter how much they may want to.

The Area were back on solid plutonium-rocking form with 'All Along The Deep-Space Observation Probe', during which the vibrations from Syd Viscous' bass detonator caused nearby volcanoes to erupt. Fortunately, a well-aimed Desiato solo was enough to freeze the lava. Across the VILE, I saw long-time Disaster Area fan Zaphod Beeblebrox enthusiastically headbanging. Which is, of course, easier to do when you've got two heads.

The encore brought a surprise, as Desiato took over lead vocals for a cover of 20th Century Terran ensemble The Beatles' song 'She Said, She Said'. But then, I suppose that no-one is better qualified than Hotblack to sing its refrain of 'I know what it's like to be dead'.

Naturally, Disaster Area's comeback show ended in the time-honoured fashion with a stunt spaceship crashing into a nearby sun. Whoops, moans, snarls, gurgles and small explosions of appreciation echoed around the VILE as a variety of species applauded the performance in their own distinctive ways.

Disaster Area blew me away. They blew quite a bit of the planet's surface away too.

Ormy's 'Notes' and Other Scribblings

Ormondroyd

06.03.03 Front Page

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