The Lewes Artwave Festival launched on Friday night in quite an explosive manner. Phil Rhodes, the exuberant front man of the cover band Tongue and Groove, lead the group into a set before making way for special guest Arthur Brown, the ‘God of Hellfire and Damnation’, who has been performing his 1968 hit ‘Fire’ and other songs for over forty years.
Everyone, of course, was waiting for that song, and realised they were going to get it when Rhodes placed a helmet on Brown’s head, and set fire to the horns, which were covered in lighter fluid.
Too much lighter fluid, it seems. A few bars into the song, it wasn’t just Arthur’s horns that were ablaze. His back was on fire too. Realising this, he walked offstage, while Rhodes attempted, successfully, to douse the flames. Unfortunately his arm caught fire in the process, and he, in turn, had to be put out by backstage staff. The audience reaction was quite startling. ‘Let me through, I’m a doctor?’ Not a bit of it. More ‘let me through, I’ve got a camera’. There must be hundreds of shots of the accident floating around.
Brown, once doused, returned helmetless to the stage, and launched back into the song, which went down a storm. Occasionally pulling out tufts of hair, he went on to perform a stunning set, which was followed by a rousing finale from Rhodes.
Later on, I met both men at a post-gig party in Cuilfail. Brown announced that it was the first time in his forty-year career that he had caught alight on stage. Rhodes, who’d been bandaged up, stated that he was dying to see some of the results of the photos that had been taken of the incident. If you did take one, please send it HERE, and we will pass it on. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of the Artwave festival, which should be proceeding in a rather calmer manner for the next three weeks. AL