Wishart v Bastard

[Scott Bullerwell]

Having detected some rumblings about Bridget Wishart's tenure with HW, I'll
throw out in this auspicious forum my own (pithless) observation:

I saw HW with Bridget in December 1990 in Denver, Colorado.  At the time I
had been out of touch with the band's lineup, releases, etc. since Zones.
Thus, I was surprised to see HW take the stage without HuwLL (distressing),
and with an unfamiliar singer (which I thought was just fine--always open
to something new).

Wishart was a pro, and sang in tune 100% of the time (!) but her stage
presence (costume changes, a few props) seemed more suited to the cheesy
amateur theatrics of an 80's neo-prog outfit than the mighty 'Wind.  I
found her to be competent, but not compelling.  I don't think she was
really into what she was doing.  And on tunes like "Reefer Madness" she was
just plain unconvincing.

More recently I saw HW (1995, in Boulder, Colorado) with then-brand-new
singer Ron "Bastard" Tree (and without the mighty Harvey Bainbridge) and
thought that (a) the band was much tighter and heavier, yet with more
dynamics (b) the show was much more intense (c) the visuals were much more,
um, psychedelic--and (d) Bridget come back, all is forgiven!  I don't know
if Tree's monitor mix was awful, or if he was having a bad night, or if
that's really the way he sings--but his vocals, when audible, were
wretched.  There were a couple places where Dave Brock sang and it was as
if the heavens parted and golden light came shining down--glorious.  Then
it was back to Tree's reedy, tuneless warble.  I thought it was closest to
Nik's punk-ish style--a far cry from Calvert.  Maybe that's changed
recently.  I sure hope so.

Scott Bullerwell
tanelorn at dimensional.com