HW: Hawkestra at Brixton

[Jon Browne]

a review reposted from rec.music.progressive:

______________________________________________
>Did anyone here attend this unique event?
>
>I couldn't go - didn't have a friend to take me  ;-(
>
>Any reports?
>
>- Nick.

Nick Medford replies:
Well what can I say- best gig I've ever attended.

Arrived to find a ridiculously long queue right round the block... despite
already having tickets we had to join the end (black mark to the Academy
for that) and missed the support band (if indeed there was one).

Got in just after 10pm and made our way 'dahn tha front'. Massive sense of
anticipation and party atmosphere as roadies took photos and pointed video
equipment at us.

Finally Brock emerges to great acclaim, joined by Alan Davey, Rich
Chadwick, Simon House, Ron Tree, and Tim Blake. A quick hello, then
bam, we're off with Hassan I Sabbah- storming version with Space Is Their
Palestine played during the middle section. Three beguiling dancing girls as
well (they reappear at various points in the evening, and unusually for a
Hawkwind show the dancing was actually quite good). After that it goes
something like this... don't ask me to remember exactly who played on
what, and I will almost certainly get the order wrong- but here goes:

Hassan/Palestine
Assault and battery
Golden Void
Utopia (Nik's first appearance of the night, scaly reptile suit and all)

Then a general shifting of stage gear while Harvey comes on, plays a long
ambient keyboard piece which eventually turns into ....

Free Fall

sung by Harv, extremely well too

On comes Huw who sings

Rocky Paths
Moonglum

His voice sounds the same, there may have been a technical problem with
his guitar- he was giving it plenty of welly but it didn't sound like the
crystal
clear liquid soloing of yore. Also he doesn't look too well, all hunched over..
is he OK?

The band regroup, a youngish (by Hawk standards!) bloke with glasses takes
over on keys... guess this must be Steve Swindells- sure enough we get...

Shot Down In The Night
Wage War (read out by Ron)
Spirit Of The Age
Psy Power

I should mention that Ron was absolutely superb on the above numbers, his
voice has improved out of all recognition and he did Calvert proud. In fact
this section was one of the highlights for me.

Tim Blake does a storming rendition of

Lighthouse

Then another full band (Martin Griffin and Danny Thompson in there
somewhere) give us

Angels of Death
Motorway City (think Jerry Richards came on for a solo on this)

Then some grey haired freak previously unknown to me comes in on bass..
it's Thomas Crimble... hold on, we've got Dave, Nik, Huw, Thomas, Terry
Ollis on the drums and Dik Mik lurking in the wings.... pretty much the
original line-up from '69- incredible. They play

Hurry On Sundown
..with a bit of Only Dreaming thrown in

and this is sheer magic. Can hardly believe what I'm seeing. Enough to
make a man choke on his spliff.

Somewhere during all this Del Dettmar was noodling away on electronic
devices too.

They regroup again... it's just Dave, Alan, Rich and Tim and we shoot
forward about 25 years in time for

Sputnik Stan
Alien I Am
Right To Decide

Nik comes back on. He recites

Warriors

with plenty of electronic gurgles from Del and Tim... the atmosphere is
getting supercharged... everyone senses that the time for the Space Ritual is
nigh. The band set up an insistent rhythm and a huge roar greets Lemmy as
he makes his way out from the back of the stage and powers the band into a
thunderous rendition of

You Shouldn't Do That

which nearly blew my head off. They follow it up with

Psychedelic Warlords (which was phenomenal)
Space Is Deep (which was even more phenomenal)
Born To Go
Brainstorm.... now I know we've all heard this ten zillion times but this was
truly awesome... no overlong middle section, just pounding riffing and the
lightshow, which had been superb all night, went into stroboscopic
overdrive. During this song I reached a sort of nirvana... then they give us

Master Of The Universe

Now it just wouldn't be Hawkwind if they didn't do something totally naff at
some stage, and here it was: former "glamour model" (ahem) Samantha Fox
(ex-girlfriend of Lemmy's possibly??) comes on to shake her ample assets and
even attempts to sing... Nik seems a little distracted by her charms and
screws up the vocals.. the song is a thrashing mess. No-one particularly cares
by this stage but if they do bring a live album out don't expect this track to
make the cut!! She goes offstage and they make amends with a rip-roaring

Orgone Accumulator
Sonic Attack
Silver Machine... with pretty much everyone on stage, a maelstrom of noise,
light and smoke

Finally they finish, then almost immediately return... Nik makes a bit of a
hash of introducing everybody... those few not onstage at this point
(Dikmik, Jerry R, Terry O, original guitarist Mick Slattery) come out and
take a bow- then those onstage (everybody else) encore with

Ejection

and that, my fine furry friends, was that.

To see Del, Nik, Lemmy, Dave and Simon H playing the early 70s numbers
together was quite simply a dream come true. It really meant so much... I'm
sure I'm not the only person who has followed the band for the last 15-20
years but has always wanted to see that line-up above all others. Be honest-
how many times have you gazed at the cover of Space Ritual and thought,
shit man, I wish I'd seen that. So the last hour or so was the truly special
part.

All in all they played for about 4 hours... there were lengthy and often
brilliant instrumental interludes and extra passages in many tracks. I may
well have missed out a few tracks from the set listing but I'm sure someone
will correct me!

Images that linger in the mind: Ron whipping the crowd into a frenzy
during Spirit of the Age, Lemmy and Alan's rolling thunder bass duel,
Lemmy and Dave trading licks, Terry O's amazing drumming, the expression
of joy on Tim Blake's face when the crowd began singing along with
Lighthouse... and the dazed, happy faces of the faithful.

The rest of the night? Well after Tim had given such a great performance,
his solo set was a bit of a letdown I thought... just too bland for my taste,
although many seemed to enjoy it. Bedouin were unbelievably loud, hard
and fast- they threw in 3 Alan Davey-penned HW numbers: Elric the
Enchanter, which was played pretty straight, Arioch- which was played at
the speed of light, and Wings, which I thought was crap on Space Bandits
but was a totally different proposition given this riff-monster approach.
Excellent.

Finally Simon House: slow to get going due to a technical hitch, then
played achingly beautiful versions of Spiral Galaxy, Hall Of The Mountain
Grill, and some equally impressive solo stuff before the evening finally came
to a low-key close.

Amazing night. Although on the train back I heard one bloke say to his
mate: "I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as when we saw 'em in
Doncaster 2 years ago". His mate agreed. Just goes to show you can't please
all the people all the time.

Final questions: Alan Powell- was he there?! Nik seemed to think so at the
end but I was completely unaware of him. And have Dave and Nik fallen
out yet again?! Nik was somewhat flaky and untogether at times, and there
were clear signs of irritation on Brock's part. Not once did I see them speak
to each other whereas everyone else was sweetness and light. Is this the last
time we'll see Nik with Hawkwind? Then again how many times has THAT
been said before.

Anyway I've written far too much. Hope people find this informative.
Doubtless others who were there will have their own completely different
versions of events, but that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Long live the
Hawks.
--
Nick Medford



--
Jon