It’s approximately 8:45 on a Saturday night in Ramsgate. A crowd are gathered outside of the Music Hall, and in the venue’s lobby area, various people are milling around in a frighteningly compact space. Even before getting to the gig area, there’s a feeling that this is one of the Music Hall’s busiest nights.

Everyone’s out to see The Utopia Strong – a trio made up of Kavus Torabi (Knifeworld/Gong/Cardiacs), Michael York (Current 93) and 80s snooker legend Steve Davis – who’ve just released a new album. ‘Doperider’ has been well received by those occupying the more “cult” corners of the online press, and those who’ve seen the band before know how special the live experience can be, so this is a night that has a lot riding on it even before the musicians take the stage.

Before the gig begins, a man near the front of the venue is having a rather loud and lengthy conversation about how irritating people who talk during gigs can be. In a massive dose of irony and displaying a lack of self-awareness, he will soon become the only person to make noise during the band’s performance, rattling ice cubes in a plastic cup during quieter moments and scrunching his cup while fidgeting about. Luckily, this will only disturb those in his immediate environs, and never constantly.

At 9:15 sharp, The Utopia Strong make their way through the crowd and onto the tiny stage. Steve takes his place behind a desk of electronic equipment over on stage right/audience left; opposite him, Michael stands in front of a huge gong and begins tinkering with other instrumentation, and in the centre, Kavus cuts a tall, thin figure. He’s the most traditionally “rock star” like of the three musicians, but it’s quickly clear that he has a stage presence of a man who’s far more more into his art than playing to the crowd – a demeanour which suits the occasion perfectly. Kavus sets a keyboard riff in place; Steve appears to play with some wires and things – from the opposite side of the room, what he’s doing is unclear, but it’s absolutely vital to the sound that’s being created. Things begin very slowly with a world of ambient drones and detached notes, but before long, York is on the floor, working arcs of sound from his huge gong, and Kavus is layering up more electronica. The results are sometimes a little quiet, but moving through a bigger passage of sound, the band eventually arrive at a very melodic and very rhythmic piece of electronica that takes cues from The Future Sound of London, causing a few people at the front of the venue to dance. One of those figures, a balding man with curly hair, will be familiar to some prog fans as the rather energised figure in the Fierce And The Dead live videos from the same venue – and tonight, he’s just as absobed by the music, even dancing when the sounds don’t naturally allow for it.

Eventually moving away from the beat heavy rhythms, more ambient noise takes the audience further into a world of neo-psychedelic strangeness, before York adds bagpipes and some of the music takes on a world music atmosphere. This might be a little further out of your average progger’s comfort zone, but within the self-contained Utopia Strong universe, it’s a perfect soundscape, as are the more prog-centric pieces from the set where Kavus adds bursts of chopping rhythm guitar and distorted bass, often bringing togteher influences that sound like ‘Voyage 34’ era Porcupine Tree augmented by Jah Wobble. Among the more electronica themed sounds, there are melodies that veer towards something that sounds like ‘Disaster 2’ (from The Utopia Strong’s 2022 release ‘International Treasure’) as well as a very Arabic sounding phrase where Michael is clearly working very hard to make a woodwind instrument cut through the wall of sound. The way the set is presented makes it very hard to pick out individual tracks, but the stronger melodies of this piece definitely create one of the gig’s stand out moments, and watching the musicians working together creates an almost hypnotic experience.

At approximately fifty minutes into the set, the music fades, gradually drifting into silence. A little uneasy applause quickly erups into a wave of genuine gratitude. Kavus grins and nods at the crowd, knowing almost everyone has “got” it and appreciated that the structure of the set – with its gap-free approach – makes for an experience that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Without a word, the encore arrives, and it presents ten minutes of dubby bass loops, an old school prog vibe and even more layers of synth, shared in such a way that has allowed for one of the night’s most accessible melodies to leave the crowd with an even more positive lasting impression.

This gig has gone surprisingly quickly. The full set has felt like twenty minutes, and the way the music has been allowed to flow between ambient noise, into looped bass elements, danceable electronica and back again – creating a proper ebb and flow of sound – has shown the vision of musicians who really know how to keep people interested, even with material that, on occasion, has an air of improvisation. In many ways, the names of the individual pieces and where they sit within The Utopia Strong’s catalogue is unimportant: their live show is much bigger than that. It really captures the spirit of the late 60s psychedelic gatherings, but with a more modern (and arguably more sober) twist, whilst still giving the attendant crowd the feeling they’ve been transported somewhere away from the ordinary. And with the gig hosted at a time when the world has all too often felt as if it’s falling apart, the opportunity to be afforded such pure escapism has been very welcome indeed.

Words by Lee Realgone.
Photos by Katy.

October 2025

If you’ve enjoyed this, or anything else at Real Gone recently, please consider buying us a virtual coffee at the link below. The cost of every cuppa goes towards our site running costs and will help us stay online into 2026.