Never saw them, alas; I only started going to gigs in 75, and Magma didn't come close to Newcastle at that time, though my brother saw them the year before with the classic sextet of Vander / Blasquiz / Topp / Grallier / Olmos / Bikialo (as on the BBC sessions + Stella). Talk about purism though, I know Magma fans who regard this as the Classic line-up and reject pretty much anything they did after that. For sure it blurs into all manner of fusions and commercial uncertainties thereafter but I couldn't quite imagine life without the outrageous Kobaian discofever of Retrovision and their 2004 album Kohntarkosz Anteria is a belter. Interesting to read of Gong's relationship to Magma in the second volume of Daevid Allen's autobiographical Gong Dreaming; for sure, in a 1971 French TV clip he calls Kobaia the planet of paranoia...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT1In20u3jc