HW: Astoria gig

[Denis Regenbrecht]

Hi,

this must have been the greatest weekend in my life so far (taking over the
pole position from the Brixton one), although we (my sis & me) spent a lot
of it on various airports (thanks to the London weather and computer
failures of the booking-system).
The first people we met when we arrived (on 28th) at the hotel were Tim
Blake and Arin sitting in the foyer. After we checked in and brought our
stuff to the room we joined them and during the remainder of the evening we
were chatting about a lot of different things (storms in Brittany, winters
in Chicago, Tim's new album etc.p.p.). Later Eric Siegerman, Rob Jacobson
and another very nice US guy from New Mexico (whose name escapes me right
now) joined us and we talked on until 2.
The next day we all (plus Filip & the French's) went to the Angel (it's a
_lot_ smaller than the Beehive), where we were joined by a couple of other
fans, and then to the Astoria. Standing in line there was very reminscent
to the Brixton gig, as there was a lot of confusion about which queue was
the passport one. The security people were very funny indeed with their
inferiority complex induced behaviour to let us know how important they
are. As we waited in line we met some other cool people such as Bernhard,
Andreas and Adrian Parr.
 From all the openers IMO Tim was the best (which isn't a very objective
statement, as I'm a great Tim Blake fan).
The HW-gig itself was fabulous, the sound was great and this time I could
even _see_ the band (unlike Brixton). There were a lot of good songs (as
others have already pointed out), but Flying Doctor, Free Fall and Damage
of Life were the best IMO.
We hotel-people didn't stay too long at the official after-show-party but
went back to the hotel instead. There the after³ party, organized by Arin
(thanks a lot, you've done a great job!), took place. After a short while
the band was turning up too and the rest of the evening was a very cool
thing. Meeting all the Hawks and having the chance to chat with them was
great; they are all very friendly persons, without any bad rock-star
attitudes. The atmosphere of the evening was very relaxed and I hope all
the pictures I've taken will become good.

Thanks to the band for such a great gig, the party and the friendliness in
general! Thank's especially to Tim Blake for the interesting talk Thursday
evening! Thanks of course to Arin for all the organization work and Rob,
Eric & Steve for the party light-show! Thanks & hi to everyone else we've
met (Filip, Bernhard, Andreas, Thomas, Merick & Julie, FoFP, Jill, the
US-boys, Steve, linuxchaos, Keith and everyone else I've forgotten)!

happy new year & (c)IAO

                                D+R