HW: Harvey & Quarkspace

[K Henderson]

Hello everyone...

Last night was a fun night.  The fourth ex-Hawkwind member I've seen gracing
the Halls of Columbus since I've lived here, following Nik & Del in 1994,
and Lemmy on a number of occasions.

As you all know, the show was retained at Little Brothers, a
moderately-sized club that brings in quite a few 'alternative' artists of
some note.  It's not too far from OSU campus, so when in session, I'm sure
it brings in a fair numbers of upperclass (in a manner of speaking)
students.  Not tonight though...summertime on a Monday night is not exactly
a happenin' night on High Street!

But a decent number came out last night to see the show.  Perhaps 60 or so.
Doesn't sound like much, but we were thinking that it would be barren.  And
a big turnout would've meant that a lot of folks came thinking it was 'more'
Hawkwind than it was, which would have been bad.  Q-space's Paul kept
hounding the papers to get it right, and the ads were not misleading, though
still a bit vague.

Anyway, Quarkspace took the stage at around 10:15, and played about 1:50 or
so. Their sound guy never showed, so the band mixed themselves.  (Chet took
a few wind sprints between the stage and the board.)  Paul's drums ended up
being too loud (which has never happened before), but it wasn't bothersome
except for the one or two quieter acoustic numbers (like Outerspace
Highway).  On these, the percussion drowned out Chet's vocals (and nearly
everything else).  They did a rather technotronic set of stuff, prolly
'cause of Harvey being there.  I can never remember the titles, but I think
'Recaesarian,' 'Starbridge Freaks,' and 'We are QPR' were the ones they did.
Guitarist Dave Wexler really was smokin' all through the second half of
their set, beginning with some terrific space-slide guitar on the dreamy,
Floydian track "The Circle."

Harvey came on at about 12:30 and played about 1:05, totally solo.  He had
only a keyboard and two other units, one of which looked like a DAT playback
unit, and another thing full of knobs.  So, really, it was less than a fully
'live' performance, but then that's kinda what I expected.  He started out
with Heading: Cygnus X-1 from Interstellar Chaos, and then went into the two
HW tracks Dream Worker/Blue Dreamer and Freefall.  The former is as you
would expect, the latter a little strange.  E-bass for real bass of course,
and his disjointed echoed vocals not matching the original, certainly.  Then
he went through a warm ambient phase (nice!) and a long pulsating synth jam
to close out.  I rather expected/hoped for TV Suicide (yes, I like it!), and
Toad on the Road, but maybe he could be talked into those at SD (if he
brought them with him.)  :)  So musically-speaking, it wasn't so phenomenal
or anything, but it woulda worked great as Stage Two between Q-space and
Star Nation.  If...  And Jim L. and Brian F. did a fabulous job with the
visuals!!!  Not so many bodies (well, just one) and little equipment gave
them a big panoramic tapestry to project onto, and all sorts of great space
stills and rotating lights were seen.  This made it a great A-V show.  I
kinda doubt he'll have the lights working for him at SD'2K if he's in the
tent and it's too light out.  That's too bad.

I asked Jim about SD-Sat. night, and it seems there's still no final answer,
though I gather there's not to be any last minute new names added.  Probably
just a shuffling of time schedule.  A suggestion was made to me however,
that we may see over the last half-hour or so of Saturday night, the main
stage cluttered with members of various bands (i.e., those on the schedule)
all jamming together.  I think you could probably guess who some of those
folks might be.

So...those of you in Philly and NYC, I'd definitely suggest checking out the
show, regardless of whether you're coming to SD'2K or not.  Partly because
of the cool space show, and partly because the openers there (Sloterdijk and
Escapade) won't be at SD'2K.

Yours in Space...Grakkl (FAA)