My first exposure to HENGE was a friend’s cool T-shirt depicting a solemn, wizard-like figure, several lizardy aliens and a planetary eclipse. I assumed it was from some forgotten ’80s sci-fi space opera – it looked both familiar and epic. When he told me they were a band, a band who were still touring, I didn’t need to hear their music to know I wanted to see them…

And so it was that I found myself in the atmospheric surroundings of St Luke’s on a cold Sunday night in November as the lights flickered and electronic feedback rang out. A robotic voice warned us that there was an “unidentified return signal detected”, and we were treated to the unusual spectacle of HENGE taking the stage.

Despite having travelled across the cosmos, they looked fresh and energetic, led by their leader Zpor, the aforementioned wizard-like figure dressed in mad robes with a pulsing plasma globe embedded in his headgear, who claims to hail from Agricular in Cosmos Redshift 7. It’s hard to capture just what an unhinged presence he is – think David Harbour cast as an avuncular, slightly deranged children’s TV presenter (who thinks he’s an alien), replete with plummy accent and overblown facial tics. When he’s not blinking and sticking his tongue out, he engages the crowd (“a fine selection of lifeforms”) in zany banter (“Do we have any non-humanoids here?”, prompting shouts of “Mancunian” and “Aberdonian”) and waves his arms around in vaguely messianic fashion.

He’s flanked by Sol, a slightly fey “humanoid” with long blond hair and robes, who the band apparently found wandering aimlessly and enlisted to play synth. Then there’s Goo on guitar, a somewhat taciturn green man who takes centre stage singing in his native tongue on The Great Venusian Apocalypse, but otherwise mostly keeps his own counsel. And lastly there’s Nom, another green man with lots of facial tentacles (a beard?), who puts in what must have been a seriously sweaty shift on the drums.

But is the music any good? Surprisingly, yes! Their four albums to date have been almost as varied as more celebrated bands like King Gizzard, at points resembling surf-rock psychedelia on Slingshot, then veering into ravey electronica. Wanderlust and Get a Wriggle On (the latter an urgent plea to stop wrecking the planet) both could be themes to forgotten ’80s children’s TV shows or video games.

If this all sounds vaguely ridiculous, it is! There’s more than a whiff of Galaxy Quest to their endeavours. But much like that movie, they are tremendous fun and impossible not to get swept along with.

And despite the wackiness of their stage show, the strong underlying message about taking care of this planet really resonates and hits home.

After an hour-long set Zpor sadly informed the audience that they would need to “blast off”. They closed with a rousing version of Demilitarise – with Sol holding up flashcards and the crowd bellowing out the refrain:

“We demand that the weapons of war are manufactured no more –Demilitarise.”

They may be mad and rather comical, but it’s a genuinely powerful song. Somehow they manage to be both hilarious and heartfelt, a difficult balance to strike.

They are certainly a tough act to follow, a task which falls to Gong, the classic psychedelic band whose roots date all the way back to the ’60s. An indication of Gong’s almost mythic status comes on the way to the gig – my friend popped into Vinyl for a pint and was informed by the excited barman (apparently a Gong fan) that Jimi Hendrix once gave a guitar to one of their founder members. I can’t vouch for the veracity of this claim, but their sound does feature some wonderful psychedelic guitars.

After a short intermission, a loud gong was rung (of course!) and the band appeared onstage: a drummer, a saxophone player and three guitarists including their charismatic leader Kavus Torabi, all wild, wiry hair and wide-eyed excitement.

Over the past 50-plus years there have been multiple changes in both personnel and name, but the current line-up has been together for 12 years and it shows – their playing is incredibly tight. It is a very different experience to the first half of the gig, but no less engrossing, with several songs building and building to spectacular crescendos. It would feel almost solemn if Kavus wasn’t such an effusive presence, chatting to the crowd between songs.

The set list includes My Guitar is a Spaceship, Kapital, All the Clocks Reset, Choose Your Goddess and Stars in Heaven, before a closing medley ends with the inevitable Master Builder. I’m only slightly familiar with their back catalogue (Riley and Coe are fans and play them on 6 Music) and yet I’m swept up, almost hypnotised by the end – a spell which even the presence of that stray saxophone can’t break.

When the lights come up everyone else seems to be similarly bewitched, and it takes a while to come round to our senses and shuffle through to the bar for a final (unwise) nightcap.

All in all, a fabulous night, with my only regret being not making it to the merch stand to get myself one of those cool T-shirts.

Images: Angela Canavan

Words: Matthew Turner