HW: Walthamstow Review

[Ian Abrahams]

The usual five hour train journey from Cornwall to London and Stuart & myself make it into town on Friday afternoon for a quick whiz around the usual shops: Forbidden Planet, HMV, Borders and then its down to Walthamstow to find the hotel before the four o'clock deadline when its going to be cancelled...gosh, its a longer walk than it looks on the map (and going in the opposite direction for ten minutes to start with doesn't help!)...3.55pm and we are on the roundabout just before the hotel...but which way to go??????

We make it with about three minutes to spare and say "Hi" to Arin in reception and get ourselves booked in...theres a *great* bunch of people hanging around and we get our introductions: Rich, Merrick & Julie French, Alan Taylor, Keith Henderson, Denis Regenbrecht....Brock arrives with a cherry "hello everybody" and a complaint that it took three and a half hours to drive up from Brighton (the vintage car rally does it quicker than that surely??).

We get ourselves settled in our room and time for a rest before heading down to The Bell pub...next time we need to pick an establishment where they do food...where we meet Mike Holmes, Jill Strobridge (no, Jill, despite what you advised when we nearly met at St Austell in 1999...you don't look like my Gran!!!), Bernhard Pospiech (a great pleasure to meet the guy who got me onto the discussion lists in the first place - a highlight of the weekend really) and others...spend some time chatting "children-talk" with Julie: hope I don't embrass myself or the Frenchs by saying here what a smashing lady, we came away feeling like we'd known her all our lives..and then off to the gig in the company of our German friends.

Catch up at the gig with Alan Taylor and then meet Alan Linsley for the first time and have a great chat. Litmus rather wash over us, but they generally went down very well. No Tim Blake solo performance which was a little disappointing (though from comments on earlier shows, not too disappointing). Great Hawkwind performance - a pity that Simon didn't show and very sad that Huw's membership seems to be slipping away again (it shouldn't end like this, but the impression is that he was "tired and emotional" once too often). Arthur Brown was a real revelation - a whirlling dynamo of energy - lets hope that he sticks around as he's certainly freshened up the format.

Set List a bit uninspired compared to last year. Great to hear Out of the Shadows (how did the horse of the same name do in the 12.10 at Haydock yesterday..we liked the co-incidence bet), Aerospaceage *very* good, Assassins of Allah very tired but at least not quite as uncomfortable to listen to as last year. In keeping with what we read about the rest of the tour, Tim Blake very hard to pick out for most of the set, but he made the most of an extended intro for Lighthouse...

Very sinister Sonic Attack..the first time I've enjoyed this one...marvellous Spirit of the Age. Very much a tight performance from the power trio but I enjoyed the fuller range of sound on last years tour that bit more.  Lets hope Simon surfaces again for next year.

We have a great time after the show in the party that Arin so kindly pulled together, catch up with Ben Fagin (yeah - we saw the steam train at Paddington station, Ben!) and finally head off to the hotel at 1.30am!

Very leisurely breakfast the following morning, chatting again with Alan T, Bernhard, Rich & Arin and we meet Nick Lee as well. Finally, we head back to our room to gather our stuff and encounter Dave Brock coming the opposite way.

Dave gives us a very cherpy "Morning!"   Twenty years I've been going to his gigs and at last have said hello...I *knew* if I held out long enough he'd have to speak first :-)))    A thrill!

A great event, made Very special by meeting so many wonderful people from the discussion lists. Big thank you to Arin for her sterling work in organising the hotel (thanks also due to Rik I believe) and the after the gig party..and yes, Arin, I did buy "Chimes of Midnight" in Forbidden Planet yesterday!

Ian