HW: Derby Rock & Blues

[Nick Lee]

Hi,

just got back from the Derby Rock & Blues (via a night out in Manchester).
After the longest wait between gigs (for me at least, since I've been seeing
them) HW didn't disappoint.
They opened with Aerospaceage Inferno, followed by Ron reading Wage War (I
think, I haven't listed to Gagarin for quite some time), this led into
Motorway City then (although not necessarily in this order) Assault &
Battery/Golden Void, Assassins of Allah, Alchemy, a new piece, Master of the
Universe (with a fantastic trance middle section), Utopia, Blue Skin,
Brainstorm with Sonic Attack sandwiched in the middle, encoring Song of the
Gremlin and Silver Machine - featuring Dumpy as guest. I think if the curfew
hadn't struck we'd have got another song or two, as it was they played about
90 mins.
The line-up was the basic four-piece, no Crum this time around.   The stage
was much smaller than last time around here, but the audience was,
apparently, the biggest ever for a Friday night, can't think why... Once the
sound had been sorted out, about a couple of songs in, they played an
absolute blinder.  Not quite a full light show this time, but pretty damn
good, and some new dancers along side Kris who, during Utopia, were smoking
4' spliffs and snorting lines of 'coke' the width of the stage with massive
straws!  Master of the Universe was probably the highlight for me along with
rousing version of Brainstorm (Sonic Attack didn't quite work to start with,
but became increasingly menacing as it continued) and Silver Machine (not my
favourite, but it always works well at events like this).

Can't wait until the next one!

Nick