HW: Nik's lot @ the MEAN FIDDLER

[Colin J Allen]

The female keyboard player/vocalist in ICU/P was, I believe, Ola.  ICU/P
were a mess; the songs were ruined beyond recognition and it was, frankly,
boring, which the REAL ICU never were.

Tractor were technically OK in a dull sort of way; Eric Bell livened it up
rather but was not on for long enough.

Space Ritual were fairly dreadful; far too many people on stage at once with
the 2 truly good musicians (Jerry Richards & Adrian Shaw) being inaudible
for most of the very short set amid the cacophony of under-rehearsed jamming
that passed for the songs.  Still, it was an experience, but probably in the
same way that watching England attempt to play cricket is!

Colin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Linsley" <alankerren at YAHOO.CO.UK>
To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.SPC.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2002 7:32 PM
Subject: HW: Nik's lot @ the MEAN FIDDLER


> --- DRider <Hawkwind at attbi.com> wrote:
>Could someone please send us a review of this event

Well, as you asked. This is just a few comments, I
don't pretend this is thorough or comprehensive.
Sorry for those of you getting this three times...

 - Inner City Pomp -
This is what we got instead of the proposed ICU.  I
don't know who the announcer was (possibly Andy
Dunkley) but he said something before this band came
on and I missed it all as I was getting food upstairs.
 So as far as I can tell the band consisted of Nik,
Dave Anderson (bass), Naz (guitar), Jim Hawkman
(synths) and others I didn't recognise on keyboards
and drums (could have been Dino but I didn't recognise
him if it was).  It was pretty poor to start with but
improved a little.  Very loose & unrehearsed, not
surprising under the circumstances.  It seemed like a
ropey attempt at turning what would have a been a
bonafide ICU reunion with Trev & Steve into a kind of
Imperial Pompadours "wow it's so crazy anything could
happen" type of thing.  I wasn't too impressed.
Numbers attempted and mostly massacred included Space
Invaders, Watching the Grass Grow, Bones of Elvis,
Little Black Egg, Gas Money.  I didn't jot down a full
setlist coz I didn't think it was worth it, but don't
worry coz Nik suggested we'd all just taken part in
the live album recording of the event.  Now there's a
surprise.  I suppose some credit must go to Nik for
trying to front this group at the last minute and hold
it together.  However, my take on ICU was that they
were never supposed to be The Nik Turner Band, I
always felt Trev & Fred & Steve were just as important
if not more so than Nik, whereas what we got here was
really just Nik & The Stand-ins.   If this is the
future of ICU, please save us Judge, you're our only
hope!

 - Tractor -
I'd never heard of this band until they started
getting promoted along with Nik's band.  They're a
duo, a singer/guitarist with a drummer/bongo player.
I was very impressed.  They had a good strong sound,
very tight, quite professional, put ICP to shame.
Fair play to them.  They did an encore with Eric Bell,
playing Whiskey In The Jar & another bluesy number.
This was fun to hear, although he was one of those
good guitar players who just mumbles his vocals.

 - Space Ritual.net -
The line-up was Nik, Jim Hawkman on synths, woman on
bongos, bloke called Rhubarb on vocals, Mick Slattery,
Thomas Crimble, Jerry Richards & Hewitt-the-younger
(all on guitar), Ron Tree, Dave Anderson, Adrian Shaw
(all on bass), Terry & Sam Ollis (both on drums) plus
2 dancers.  Apart from Hewitt-the-younger, all of the
above were onstage at the same time throughout.  The
set was the same as Guilfest more or less, except
they've dropped the Coltrane number (which was Blue
Train I think) and In The Mood (coz Inner City Pomp
did that), and instead they have put in a new number
that Thomas sang (called It's Alright or something
similar) and they're also doing Born To Go now - I
remember somebody requested it at Guilfest but as Mick
didn't know it they didn't play it then.  Other
numbers were Orgone Accumulator, D-Rider (a definite
high-point, some nice flute there), Brainstorm, Master
of the Universe, Silver Machine.  Can't remember the
precise order.  Nick Calvert joined in for Silver
Machine.  How was it?  It was driving powerful
early-HW-type noise somme of the time, a cacophony of
unrehearsed pub-rock the rest of the time.  Master was
a good example - exciting to hear it and arguably they
try to play it with more energy than HW do, but it was
still a loose mess with 3 bass players all managing to
get it wrong.

I suppose it all depends what you think a "party" gig
should be.  We all know the stories about the PinkWind
din sessions in the early 70s, the Deviants & The
Pretty Things used to do the same in the 60s, but that
was at the end of the evening, when both bands had
already done their "proper" thing.  This is clearly
the spirit Nik is trying to evoke.  But having all the
guests on at once throughout the whole set muddied
things and detracted from the sound rather than
enhance it IMHO.  For example I can't honestly say I
heard a good guitar break all evening, Mick's playing
was sadly lost in the overall noise, as was Jerry's.
Ron Tree did very little in the way of vocals, he
looked hemmed in physically and musically, no room to
express himself.  I was never a big fan of Ron but
you've got to admit he had/has character and energy,
and none of that was expressed last night, he just
stood there looking thoroughly sheepish throughout.  A
few words about the Ollis duo though - they are
superb, Terry's drumming seems perfectly suited to
this kind of stripped down basic early-HW-style music.
 If I had to sum this performance up I'd say that I
think I preferred the basic band at Guilfest (Nik,
Mick, Thomas, Terry & Sam, Jim), although that could
have been the novelty value of seeing them for the
first time.  The overall impression at Mean Fiddler
was one of quantity over quality, very much a case of
"forget the music, just look at all the names we've
got up here! Of course you can't hear most of them but
hey they used to be in Hawkwind so have fun!" etc etc.
 Plenty of people seemed to be enjoying themselves,
and I certainly did for some of it.

 - politics -
Unlike Guilfest, I didn't hear any preaching from the
stage about "We're not trying to be Hawkwind honest
guv", the court case, Nik doing his "I'm so innocent"
act etc.  Neither was the "spirit of Barney
Bubbles/Bob Calvert" invoked, which is good coz I'm
getting heartily sick of this lot dragging up any name
they can think of to justify what they're doing.

 - venue -
I missed the gig last year where people seem to have
been treated so badly at this place.  I personally had
no problem last night, I found the staff amiable and
friendly and was not herded out at the end, despite
hanging around chatting to people after the band had
finished.

Would I go again?  Not to another GTruckers party,
possibly to another straight SpaceRitual.net gig
though, probably Southampton next year coz Judge Trev
might play Black Raven in his support slot.
Otherwise, roll on the real HAWKWIND in December I
say, with Bedouin and Silver Machine to keep us going
til then!

AL





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