Croydon Show

[Nick Medford]

The set:

Assault and battery
The Golden Void
Clouded Vision
Spacebrock
Space is Deep
Hippy
Flying Doctor
? new song
Angels Of Death
High Rise
The Awakening/Standing On The Edge
You Better Believe It
Song of The Gremlin
Spirit Of The Age
Hassan I Sabbah

Encores:
Spiral Galaxy
Motorway City
Hurry On Sundown

The verdict: Bloody great. The key moment was a couple of minutes into
'Golden Void': up to then everyone was sitting down, there was no
atmosphere;- then a few people jumped out of their seats- security tried to
dissuade them but suddenly there was huge surge to the front, security
withdrew- everyone was on their feet, we had passion, we had fervour, we
had a proper Hawkwind gig on our hands.  Soon after Ron asked security to
stop hassling people and they disappeared, to leave band and audience to
enjoy each other's company.

There were scrappy moments: God knows what was going on in the messy,
drumless rendition of High Rise, but Simon House saved the day with some
sublime soloing. But the highlights were many: a rip-roaring Flying Doctor, a
lengthy, pounding Spacebrock with vocals from Ron, a beautiful reworking
of Clouded Vision, and best of all an incredible You Better Believe It which
comes close to being the greatest five minutes of live Hawkwind I've seen.

Rizz popped up on Hassan and Spiral Galaxy and seemed less out-of-place
than when I've seen him previously.  His lunatic dancing set against the
barrage of strobes added something to the visuals, at any rate. And the
lightshow was great: no crummy video footage of kids playing space invaders
tonight: just wall-to-wall psychedelic back projections and effective lasers
and strobes.

Hurry On Sundown, with the invincible three-guitar blanga of Dave, Jerry
and Huw- great end to a great gig. Special mentions to Brock, who still has
the strongest voice in the band, and Captain Black Keith Kniveton who
drenched everything in some superlative whirling swoosh. The overall sound
is probably the loudest, densest and heaviest than at any time since Space
Ritual.  Here's to the next time!

In message <005801c0b588$040092a0$0100a8c0 at kermitz>, Si Halley
<sihalley at CABLEINET.CO.UK> writes
>Just back.
>
>Cool show. Very relax. Everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves. Complete
>cock-up of High Rise. But they laughed it off. Dave seemed to be taking the
>micky out of everybody, especially Simon.
>
>Line-Up: Dave, Ron, Richard, Alan, Jerry, Simon, Captain Bl at ck. Huw for The
>last part of the show and Rizz on Hassan and the encore. Plus the new
>Sax/flute player who`s name I tried to remember but I`m afraid it`s gone
>again, same guy as Astoria.
>
>Jerry I thought was great tonight. It`s the first time I`ve actually been
>able to hear him properly live. Much impressed.
>
>Sound MUCH better then last time in Croydon. I think it makes a huge
>difference to where in the room you are at his venue. It had a few problems
>at first but settled to being pretty clear where I was.
>
>Support from Alan/Bedoiun and a short accoustic bit by Huw which ran
>straight into the bands set.
>
>Tracks, not complete and in totally the wrong order, sorry:
>
>Assault..
>Golden Void
>Spirit Of the Age
>Hassan
>Hippy
>Gremlin
>High Rise (sort of...)
>You Better Believe It (!)
>Hurry On Sundown
>Angel Of Death
>Couple of Poems
>Spiral Galaxy
>Space Is Deep
>Flying Doctor
>The second track was familiar, can`t place it but was very good!
>
>Best
>
>Si
>
>
>The Alice Cooper Trivia File:
>http://www.alicecoopertrivia.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/tindex.html

--
Nick Medford