HW: Cornwall

[Marie Jenkinson]

Hi all,
            Now that I've finally recovered from the 8 hour drive down to the week long party in Carleen and the 14 hour drive home on Friday, here's the complete picture of the Eclipse gig.
Setting off at 6.00pm on Sunday night, the drive down was reasonable, once the traffic on the M1 and M42 had been left behind.  The weather, it rained for most of the 8 hours drive down, didn't look too promising for Wednesday's solar show.  Carleen was easy to find - although the campsite was very elusive.  After driving round Carleen in pitch darkness for about 20 minutes, no doubt freaking out all the neighbourhood watch schemes, we found the site.  10 minutes later, we found ourselves directing Jerry, Richard and Rizz, in their convoy from Devon, onto the site - also lost.  (I thought that the Summer Daze site in Langtree was out of the way!) The rain managed to hold off for half an hour - long enough to pitch up the tent, break out a beer and catch up with a few people that were still up.  Then - time for a few hours kip before the fun really began.
Monday was fairly dull with the odd heavy shower.  Popped into Helston for petrol - nightmare, traffic everywhere so vowed not to venture out of the campsite again until it was time to go home.  Spent the rest of the day and night milling around catching up with the band and friends down there, chilling out and drinking loads as there was little else to do around there.  
Tuesday was glorious, absolutely baking hot for most of the day.  An exploration of the nearby Tregonning Hill  - to check out the vantage point for the eclipse - proved to be interesting.  After an assault course over cattle water feeders, five foot high walls, brambles and public footpaths that hadn't seen a walker in years, the view from the top of the hill was spectacular - and the walk back down turned into a stomp through bracken and brambles over seven feet high - I was assured that this was a 'path' down the hill - a rabbit path maybe.  With rumours flying round the site that Hawkwind may play a set - off to the marquee in the next field.  Sadly - thanks to the trouble in Truro (riot police attacking festival goers with tear gas etc) is seemed better to forget that plan in case of trouble.  The night sky looked pretty spectacular - looking good for the Persids meteor shower that peaked on Thursday night.
Wednesday - the second most hyped day ever  - and it's cloudy.  It was overcast, it got dark really quick and then brightened up again.  Still a pretty creepy lightshow though.  The noise of people cheering and the blinding camera flashes (not quite sure what they were hoping to photograph though) were on all sides.  The eclipse was quickly followed by Hawkwind on stage for the afternoon taster.
The afternoon session was a great taste of things to come.  Basically, it was a loose jam session with some cracking highlights.  Spirit of the Age was mind blowing - shivers down the spine etc - great to hear that played live with Ron giving his all on the Calvert vocals.  Assassins of Allah / Space is their Palestine - always a crowd pleaser, with Rizz and Ron on main vocals.  Fantasy - a good number from the last tour.  The best track was probably Hippy, since I've been dying to hear that live ever since listening to 'Hawkwind in your Area' and was annoyed to hear that I'd missed it during the sound check at Pentrich.  
Also - lots of impro stuff - including a really good track with Richard on vocals, something to do with the moon, sleep and love (a bit vague there I'm afraid due to various excesses throughout the day)  Ron also read out a poem - sounded like some sort of body part checklist but again a bit vague here.  With the dancer working away on and off stage accompanied by fluorescent feathers, paint and the huge painted 'man' from the Alien tour, there was plenty to see on stage and off.  And this was just the warm up set!!

The evening slot started around 9.30 - 10.00
Here's the full set list for the evening slot - according to Jerry anyway, and he should know!
Aerospaceage Inferno
Wage War
Motorway City
Assault and Battery
Golden Void
Alchemy
Anna Seed
Utopia
Ron's Poem (no title on this)
Assassins / Space is Their Palestine
Love in Space
Brainstorm
Encore - Ejection
Gremlin pt 2

The set list was pretty much the same as Pentrich - although they dropped Sonic Attack and Blue Skin - adding Ejection with Mr Dibs guesting on bass.  The new song - Anna Seed was a pretty slow trippy instrumental, a welcome breather after the heady Alchemy.  Fantastic to hear classic songs resurrected such as Motorway City and Utopia - being fairly new to the Hawkscene I'd never seen those played live.  The marquee was packed with very happy people, all enjoying the crowning point of the day (far better that watching the sky go dark for a few minutes) The set was bloody loud too - far louder than Pentrich I thought and, sadly, the vocals tended to distort occasionally too - still, a great job by the sound guys considering it was in a field in the middle of nowhere.  Nice to see Jerry doing a fair bit of backing vocal work.  Mitzi did an excellent job of the dancing, considering the extreme lack of space on the two flatbed trucks that formed the stage.  With the fire act at the back of the marquee as well - great show.
Once Hawkwind had finished - off to the fireworks and shooting stars overhead.  There were rumours of another set by the band, however, this was not to be.  The ensuing rave finally had the plug pulled at around 2.00AM - apparently someone had complained to the police and the site was contacted - end of rave.Thursday - wind down, party loads and look forward to the long, long drive back home.

Everyone I spoke to really enjoyed themselves - including the band.  Fun was had by all.

Finally - many thanks to Hawkwind, Kris and best wishes to all who were there.  Simply one of the best weeks of my life and I'm glad that I was fortunate enough to be there and share the experience with so many great people.

Cheers


Marie
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