HW: Swindon

[Wright, Mike]

Dear boclers,

here is my attempt at a review of Saturday, in response to an enquiry from a
chum.

> I was perusing the Gong Web site on Saturday to see if there was any
> info about the gig w. HW in Nottingham on Wednesday. Gosh that
> sentence nearly isn't! Anyway, the point is the Gong are support
> (good) and that Tim Blake will be playing with HW. Alledgedly. Do you
> know what they're like on this tour? Who's in the band now?

Well, they were quite good on Saturday in Swindon - Tim was meant to be
support and playing with them, but didn't. This meant that Simon House and
backing tapes did some stuff, his violin was good, the 2 songs he sang were
absolutley dreadful. He had ambient backing and drums for the 1st one, iron
dream backing for the 2nd, the third was a long slow doomy gothy thing, then
there may have been the middle section of a HW song, then he did two songs
where he sang. He wanted lots of effects and reverb, but still we could hear
the notes that were being sung, which was a shame. He finished with a techno
backing track one, co-written by his son, or influenced by his son who likes
that sort of thing. I guess he was asked to appear at short notice, but
should not sing in public.

HW came on and did well, they had good sound, wonderful lights and appeared
to be enjoying themselves.

The line up is Huwie (very good) Simon House, on keyboards maybe just due to
the non appearance of tim) and violin (which had various loud noises in it
towards the end of the show), Ali Davey, Richard Chadwick, Dave. They played
(probably not in this order)
lighthouse (dave doing vocals, reading them)
levitation
spiral galaxy
moonglum (the most recent song, written 86)
angels of death
brainbox pollution followed by an instrumental that is old but I cannot
remember the name of
watcher
motorway city
hurry on sundown
hassan i sahba
Encore1: assault & battery / golden void
Encore2: ejection

So similar to RFH, but without mike M + Tim B's songs, with brainbox added,
which was very good. Huwie fitted in very well, not too metal, just right
amount of spacey soloing. Simon doing keys was a shock, generally preferred
him on violin. Ali was the same as ever, and richard was hidden away behind
the drums.

No sign of Jez Hugget (saxophonist) or Captain Black, (analogue synths). The
sound was good, the band together, and even the lack of Tim didn't seem to
throw them out too much.

Mike w


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