HW: Xmas party at the Forum

[Nick Medford]

The best HW gig I've ever seen.

Line-up : DB, Huw, Alan, Richard, Simon, plus Tim Blake and (the big
surprise) Danny Thompson on a second kit for much of the set. Plus a few
spots from Rizz.

The set:

Magnu
Down Through the Night
Lighthouse
Levitation
Spiral Galaxy
Moonglum
Brainbox Pollution
Wind of Change
Rizz spoken intro
The Watcher
Spacebrock
Sonic Attack
Time We Left This World Today
Motorway City
Hurry On Sundown

encores:
Hassan I Sabbah
Ejection

It was loud as hell, sound did get murky at times, but the pulsating wall-
of-sound effect was worth any temporary loss of clarity.

Tremendous lightshow with slides and projections from the recent tour on
screens big enough to do them justice. But the real visual treat was the
footage of the Starfighter and the wacky aviation cartoons during
Ejection.

But this was a great gig because of the atmosphere. For some reason there
was more of it than at any HW gig I've attended since the 80s. Crowd very
into it. There was an excitement, an edge, a sense of event. A deep dark
psychedelic communion. The lights and smoke reduced the band to silhouettes
much of the time which made it all the more mysterious and intense.

The music: enough set changes from the tour to keep set-watchers happy. The
more melodic numbers (Moonglum, Motorway City) suffered a bit from the
pulverising volume and maximum blanga approach, but it didn't matter. Time
We Left was incredible- truly barbaric in its ferocity. Or the moment when
Alan's evil bass riff kicked in at ther start of The Watcher- that will
stay with me for a long time. Biggest surprise was Sonic Attack: done as a
trance techno number. Everyone except Dave left the stage- a relentless
electronic rhythmic assault followed- I thought it was going to turn into
"Sex Dreams" but after a few minutes of punishing bass heavy beats, Rizz
appeared and he and Dave ripped through Sonic Attack. It was an audacious
move, a total departure, but I thought it worked wonderfully.

I admit I groaned inwardly when Hassan I Sabbah began: I had hoped they
might rest this from the set, it's been there forever it seems. But I was
wrong. It was blistering, the best I've ever heard it, from the extended
intro where Tim's synths and Simon's violin combined to memeorably eerie
effect, to yet another new take on the middle section- largely improvised
this time (or so it seemed to me), Huw the star as he has been so often of
late, up to the pounding crescendo. Then Ejection with the reggae-fied
middle section that just gets better and better- definitely the best space
reggae we've yet heard from HW.

Amazing night. And the trains were even running on time.

NM