Band members have included Didier Malherbe, Pip Pyle, Steve Hillage, Mike Howlett, Tim Blake, Pierre Moerlen, Bill Laswell and Theo Travis.

Others who have played on stage with Gong include Don Cherry,[4] Chris Cutler, Bill Bruford, Brian Davison, Dave Stewart and Tatsuya Yoshida.

In September 1967, Australian singer and guitarist Daevid Allen, a member of the English psychedelic rock band Soft Machine, was denied re-entry to the United Kingdom for 3 years following a French tour because his visa had expired.

[7] He settled in Paris, where he and his partner, London-born Sorbonne professor Gilli Smyth, established the first incarnation of Gong (later referred to by Allen as "Protogong"[8]) along with Ziska Baum on vocals and Loren Standlee on flute.

In August 1969, film director Jérôme Laperrousaz, a close friend of the pair, invited them back to France to record a soundtrack for a motorcycle racing movie which he was planning.

The reborn Gong played its debut gig at the BYG Actuel Festival in the small Belgian town of Amougies, on 27 October 1969, joined by Danny Laloux on hunting horn and percussion, and Dieter Gewissler and Gerry Fields on violin, and was introduced to the stage by bemused compere Frank Zappa.

[13] Houari left the band in the spring of 1971 and was replaced by English drummer Pip Pyle, whom Allen had been introduced to by Robert Wyatt during the recording of his debut solo album, Banana Moon.

Gilli Smyth left for a time, returning to Deià, Majorca to look after her and Daevid Allen's baby son, and was replaced by Diane Stewart, who was the partner of Tait and the ex-wife of Graham Bond.

Christian Tritsch moved to guitar and was replaced on bass by former Magma member Francis Moze, while the band's sound was expanded with the addition of synthesizer player Tim Blake in late 1972.

[17] In January 1973, towards the end of their recording sessions, they were joined by English guitarist Steve Hillage, whom they had met a few weeks earlier in France playing with Kevin Ayers.

Tim Blake, Steve Hillage, Didier Malherbe, Venux De Luxe and the rest of the Gong family decided to continue as the short-lived band Paragong who enlisted drummer Pierre Moerlen and bassist Mike Howlett but existed only two short months, March and April 1973, and only ever played live in France.

[19] Flying Teapot was released on 25 May 1973, the same day as Tubular Bells, and was the first instalment of the Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy, which expounded upon the (previously only hinted at) Gong mythology developed by Allen.

They were replaced once again by Rob Tait and Diane Stewart, and the band moved from its French base at Pavillon du Hay to an English one at Middlefield Farm, near Witney, Oxfordshire.

Prior to touring in support of You, Allen visited Smyth and the boys in Deià, while the rest of the band, including the departed Moerlen, recorded the basic tracks for Hillage's first solo album, Fish Rising.

Moerlen was initially replaced in Gong by a succession of stand-ins (Chris Cutler, Laurie Allan and Bill Bruford) until former Nice and Refugee drummer Brian Davison took the job in early 1975.

Then, at a gig in Cheltenham on 10 April, the day before the release of Steve Hillage's Fish Rising album, Daevid Allen refused to go on stage, claiming that a "wall of force" was preventing him from doing so, and he left the band.

[23] In August, Pierre Moerlen was persuaded to return, replacing the unhappy and alcoholic Davison, and the band now also added Mireille Bauer on percussion, Jorge Pinchevsky on violin and Patrice Lemoine on synthesizer and, for the first time in Gong, keyboards.

Strontium 90 was Mike Howlett's short-lived band which was notable for having two bass players, and for introducing Police members Sting and Stewart Copeland to their future guitarist Andy Summers.

After spending most of the Eighties in his native Australia, Allen returned to the UK in 1988 with a new project, The Invisible Opera Company of Tibet, whose revolving cast included violinist Graham Clark and Gong saxophonist Didier Malherbe.

appearance with a line-up featuring Allen, Smyth and Malherbe, plus early-'70s drummer Pip Pyle and three members of Here & Now: Stephan Lewry (lead guitar), Keith Bailey (bass) and Paul Noble (synth).

[24] In 1994, Gong celebrated its 25th birthday with a show in London which featured the return of Gilli Smyth, bassist Mike Howlett and lead guitarist Stephan Lewry of Here & Now.

[25] The album Zero to Infinity was released in 2000, by which time the line-up had changed again to Allen, Smyth, Malherbe and Howlett, plus new recruits Theo Travis on sax/keys and Chris Taylor on drums.

2003 saw a radical new line-up including Acid Mothers Temple members Kawabata Makoto and Cotton Casino, plus University of Errors guitarist Josh Pollock.

In June 2008, Gong played two concerts in London, at Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank (opening Massive Attack's Meltdown festival) and at The Forum, with a line-up of Allen, Smyth, Hillage, Giraudy, Howlett, Taylor and Travis.

Gong played four UK live shows in September 2010 with Allen, Smyth, Hillage, Giraudy, Sturt, Taylor and new wind player Ian East.

The I See You tour went ahead without him, and the line-up of Sturt, East, Golfetti, Torabi and a "mystery drummer" (revealed to be Cheb Nettles) played five dates in France and two in the UK.

On 5 February 2015, Daevid Allen released a statement announcing that the cancer had returned to his neck and had also spread to his lungs, and that he was "not interested in endless surgical operations", leaving him with "approximately six months to live".

[33] On 5 July 2016, it was announced that the band line-up consisting of Kavus Torabi, Fabio Golfetti, Dave Sturt, Ian East and Cheb Nettles had recorded a new album entitled Rejoice!

[42] Rolling Stone described Gong's music as combining "psychedelic English whimsy, German kosmische space jams and Gallic libertine fusion.