HW: Blackheath

[Andrew Gilham]

Carl - glad to see you made it back!

Well, first up we had a little initiative test, as the Railway Tavern, to
everyone's surprise, is now the "Fairway and Firkin" - but me, Tim, Carl,
Jazza, Mike W and Jill all made it there OK.  So did Huw Lloyd Langton, as
it goes...  I didn't think Huw's acoustic set was very good; he got quite a
good reception, but I felt it was more out of affection, than appreciation
of his performance on the night.

We'd been a bit apprehensive about Hawkwind - first gig with the new
line-up, is Ron any good on bass, how much have they rehearsed?  But you
know HW - when you're most apprehensive, that's when they put on a stormer!
 Ron is quite handy on the bass, he seems to have got the histrionic vocals
out of his system, and he was really good!  Alan is missed, sure, but the
new line-up is a good one - even though there's probably less synth than at
any time in Hawkwind's history!  Brock was messing about with his
electronics before every song, sure, but playing guitar during most of
them.  And grinning almost all the time!

>From where I was (in the mosh, of course) it was sometimes hard to tell who
was playing what - but Jerry had some good lead parts. He fitted in very
well, and everyone seemed to take a liking to him.

Light show was minimal, but the fire-eaters were there.  The bloke dropped
one of his torches in Jerry's monitor and set it on fire, which was a bit
alarming, and left us gagging on fire-extinguisher, but I think that's a
hazard you accept.

I think Jazza was taking notes, so I'll let him post the set-list.
 However: "Hassan I Sahba" surprised me because it had next to no intro and
just went straight into the riff; the heavy instro just before "Love in
Space" was pure distillate of BLANGA; "Sonic Attack" was a bit of a mess,
but they all seemed to enjoy themselves; "Brainstorm" with a bit of "Camera
that Could Lie" in the middle was great; and "Needle Gun" was all over the
fucking shop - how they kept it together at all I don't understand - but
no-one seemed to mind!

This is possibly the heaviest Hawkwind have been since the halcyon days of
Lord Lemmy.  This is a good thing!

And the Concert Halls were a very civilised venue - the bar was still open
after the show! :)

- Andy

--
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