HW: Canterbury

[Chris Warburton]

My turn: woulda been Sunday night, but my mail went up the spout >8{(>

What a wonderful place for an outdoor all-dayer - apart from the "Magical
Mystery Tour" signposting... and for me, even the on/off rain didn't spoil
things too much, it never really got cold, and the ground was well drained.

On with the show:

Josiah - know nothing about these guys, but they were pretty good, though I
think slightly nervous; my guess is that this was probably the biggest show
they'd ever done.  "Stoner rock" I guess, definitely shades of
Sabbaff/Budgie et. al. circa 1971 with everything turned up to 11 and
distorting in mightily fine style. I'd see 'em again.

Hamsters - what a hoot, I'd only heard their live "Hendrix" CD before, so I
knew that they were good: they were way better than good.  The JH covers
were very well done, including a truly dive-bombing "Star Spangled Banner",
the straight R&B/r'n'r stuff done with panache, and a good party trick in
the closing "Sharp-Dressed Man" with them all swapping instruments...  If
you haven't seen them yet, do so, they must be somewhere near you soon 'coz
they're never off the road!!

Osibisa - by now, I'm well & truly back in the '70s.  They were pretty much
as I remember them from way back - the perfect band for teatime.  Bouncy
and exuberant and doing their best to bring out a little sunshine... Ghana
comes to Kent!

Caravan - I was a little surprised that somebody dismissed these guys as
"AOR": I know I'm a bit of an old geezer, and I HAVE been listening to
Caravan on and off for about 30 years, but to me they sound like nobody
else, and certainly don't go anywhere near the kind of "rock-lite" clichés
that the term usually implies.  For me, it was a storming set from perhaps
the most "English" band of them all (the Vaughan Williams' of prog?).  Was
quite impressed by the new(?) guitarist Doug Boyle and his tasteful
"shredding" that let Pye Hastings get on with showing that he's probably
the most under-appreciated rhythm guitarist of all.  By the time they got
to the end of "Nine Feet Underground" I was about nine feet above ground!!!
Nice encore of the splendidly silly "Golf Girl" with a guest vocal by it's
writer, Richard Sinclair, and Dave Sinclair was joined at the keyboards by
Jan Schelhaas, who'd played in the band for a while in th '70s.  Top stuff.
{End fan-boy rant}

Porcupine Tree - well, I really tried to like these guys, having been told
many times by others in these here parts how good they were, but...  Yes,
they were technically capable, and there was nothing actually "bad" about
them, but I thought that they exemplified the worst pretentious excesses
that gave "prog" a bad name, and Steve Wilson(?) seems to be so far up his
own fundament that he's in danger of choking on his own hair and getting
his specs wrapped round his tonsils: all in all, too precious by half...

Hawkwind - well, I think everybodys coveredthe ground pretty well on this.
Definitely the Hawks with their knuckle-dusters on, but great fun.  Shame
that Simon wasn't clearer in the mix until AFTER "Spiral Galaxy"... I'm
past the stage of saying "best" or "worst" etc. but I certainly enjoyed it
a lot; though it may have confirmed some parties' fears about the return of
Huw.  B*ll*x to all that - the band were rockin' it up in fine style. 'Nuff
said.

A great day, and helped along very nicely by Arthur Brown's MC routines,
long may he burn *G*

More than 2d worth there...

ChrisW
(Significantly poorer, but richer in CDs)