NEW!  NEVER-BEFORE RELEASED HERMETIC SCIENCE CONCERT FOOTAGE!  (POSTED OCTOBER 2010)

It is no exaggeration to say that somewhere between 95% and 99% of the people who own Hermetic Science CDs, or have downloaded Hermetic Science Mp3s, have never seen the band perform live.  Nonetheless, between 1996 and 2000 Hermetic Science were a live band, playing roughly 25 shows, all of them in the northwestern corner of California; nearly all of the tracks on Hermetic Science (1997) and roughly half of the tracks on Prophesies (1999) were performed live at one time or another.  However, during the summer of 2000, Ed Macan made the decision to turn the band into a studio-only project, and they have not played a live show since.

In its early days, Hermetic Science often “leavened” its live shows with a certain amount of jazz standards.  Why? If the band had played only instrumental progressive rock, no one in Humboldt County would have booked Hermetic Science!  Indeed, a band as uncompromising and unique as Hermetic Science would have had a tough slog of it in a major metropolitan area, much less a cultural backwater like Humboldt County.  By 1998, the band became more assertive in its insistence on playing a greater proportion of originals, and a smaller proportion of covers, at its gigs.  Not coincidentally, that was about the time that Hermetic Science started having more difficulty getting bookings.

That said, its would not be correct to say the band never enjoyed playing jazz covers.  Indeed, one of its early showstoppers was its interesting arrangement of jazz vibraphonist Cal Tjader’s “I Showed Them.”  To be sure, Ed Macan was never much influenced by jazz vibraphone:  as he has said elsewhere, his unique approach to vibes was largely a result of trying to adapt aspects of Hammond organ and 12-string guitar techniques to vibes, and was more contrapuntally-oriented than a jazz vibes approach allowed for.  Nonetheless, he always enjoyed Tjader’s mallet tone and solo line concept, and enjoyed the challenge of making Tjader’s composition fit the trio format.

The footage included here represents bootleg video footage of a complete performance of “I Showed Them,” taped at Celestino’s in Eureka, California, in mid-March 1997; it features Macan (vibes), Andy Durham (bass), and Joe Nagy (drums).  [Note:  Macan will send a free copy of the Crash Course compilation to the first person who e-mails him at goodvibes@hermeticscience.com and correctly identifies the current name of the old Celestino’s venue.]  Please keep in mind that this is bootleg footage; therefore, neither audio nor visual quality is “industry standard,” although it’s not bad, either, and the band’s energy comes through quite clearly.  Ed Macan always believed the band was first and foremost a live band, and was very sorry to have to pull the plug on its live incarnation.

We hope you’ll enjoy this footage, and that we can post more excerpts on this site in the future.

I Showed Them, recorded March, 1997 at Celestino’s, Eureka, California.  Ed Macan (vibes); Andy Durham (bass); Joe Nagy (drums).

Click here for archived Hermetic Science concert footage