HW: collection of thoughts on the Wembley gig

[Jonathan Jarrett]

        Dear All,
                  forgive me if I make little effort with this lot, which
is collected from things I wrote to other people; I'm desperately behind
with my mail and recycling stuff like this is one way to speed up the
catching-up. But, as it goes...

        [From one message I sent to someone who asked how the gig was... ]

> The sound was messed up, and it was bad for everyone but Anthrax but
> much much worse for Hawkwind, who didn't seem to have had a sound-check
> or anything and kept losing vocals. I guess this means they didn't turn
> up on time. Wouldn't surprise me.

        I should say that this was unfair on my part, I gathered later
that HW had been first in the building and it was purely down to the
soundman who wouldn't do soundchecks for second support. Bastard. Anyway,
I went on...

> Mid-range was full of feedback noise which, during Motorhead, was really
> painful and lost half the guitar and half of Lemmy's vocals. Hawkwind
> were a bit sloppy, but not too bad, but the sound made them sound much
> worse. They had to set up in a hurry, and what seemed to be Skew
> Siskin's kit was being moved off so I think they turned up so late that
> Lemmy had got another band in instead. And Lemmy came on for `Silver
> Machine' but stopped before the band was ready and made the whole
> thing fall apart, and was rude about the support acts and generally
> prima donna.
>
>        So I didn't much enjoy Hawkwind, though I did try, then I threw a
> wobbly shortly afterwards and thus didn't enjoy Anthrax as much as I
> could have done, and Motorhead weren't as together as usual, because
> Lemmy was in a foul mood and not listening to his band (and we couldn't
> really hear the guitar anyway) and it only really came together for the
> last few songs. But they did have the bomber lighting rig for the
> encore. So we felt better after that, which was much better.
>
>       Subsequently I discovered that Skew Siskin had in fact played
> beforehand, but all we could hear was Queens of the Stone Age and Led
> Zeppelin on the PA, so it must have been before even we got in. Never
> mind eh, from what I gather. Anyway...

        Few other thoughts on that: the sound was only bad down the front,
as I pieced it together later, and the problem seemed to be massive and
painful mid-range feedback from the PA. Huw was having terrible trouble
with feedback from the monitors during HW's set, made everything he
touched sound like an earthquake nearby, but when everybody could be heard
they were pretty good, except Tim Blake who really could have been done
without for all he did, and left Dave to make the swooshy noises. It was
good to hear Arthur Brown doing `The Gremlin', and indeed `Masters of the
Universe', but I'd have enjoyed it more if I actually could have heard
him.

        Overall, though, I was disappointed. One of the people I was with
said, more or less, they're under-rehearsed, they don't know what they
want it to sound like and they're not trying to do anything with it. And
it was still a good set apart from the sound, which did make it very hard
to enjoy, but she was right on all counts. It was a band playing Hawkwind
covers, half of them didn't seem to know how it was going to come out,
they seemed to have fun but they're a long way from being
spaceship. *Please* let them have something more coherent and directed
going by Walthamstow or my interest in this incarnation of the band,
already pretty jaundiced, will more or less disappear.

        Then there were these comments to someone else more interested in
Motorhead...

> > No problems - how were they on Saturday anyhow?  [please tell me they
> > deigned to play that bloody ill-advised cover of "God Save The
> > Queen"...I ask you, what on earth were they *thinking* about when
> > they had that idea, eh? eh?]
>
>        I'm afraid they did do it. Although they also did `Hoochie
> Coochie Man' and they had the bomber rig, so there's only so much
> complaint one can make. Um. Lemmy was in a foul mood for most of the
> first half and not listening to his band and so it didn't quite gel. And
> it was also difficult to tell because, what I didn't realise wasn't
> affecting everyone, where we were the PA had a really nasty feedback
> effect in some frequencies so the bottom end of his vocals and of the
> guitar kept getting lost in painful distorted white noise. I know
> Motorhead's supposed to hurt, but it's supposed to be their fault, not
> the venue's.
>
>        Once Lemmy cheered up, they were very good, I think. Did a good
> mix of stuff. But he was being a right prima donna. Guested with
> Hawkwind (who as far as I can tell didn't turn up in time to get a
> soundcheck and minus at least two musicians) and stopped playing before
> anyone else so that `Silver Machine' fell apart. Hawkwind, um, I've seen
> them better, but you could hear so few of the vocals and the lead guitar
> was so impossibly messed up with monitor feedback that it could have
> been brilliant and one wouldn't have known necessarily. But they seemed
> to have fun.
>
>        Anthrax were probably pretty good but I was having a personality
> crisis and didn't appreciate them as well as I could have done.

> >   ^^^ Apart from their collaboration with Public Enemy - I know little
> > of Anthrax's output - it being the best part of 15 years or so since
> > I last heard any of their material...
>
>        Well, they did do that one, among other stuff. First I'd heard of
> them as I thought, but I found I knew that one vaguely. They were very
> together and make the second US band of two I've seen since the start of
> the Iraq build-up who've apologised for Dubya from the stage...

        Some repetition there but it shows you what sort of mood I came
away from the gig in. The venue's horrible, by the way, isn't it? No beer,
security searches, no bloody cloakroom...  and of course bloody awful
sound. Ugh.

        Anyway. My faith in Hawkwind rather battered at the moment. I
shall be at Walthamstow, and just possibly at Brighton, though that seems
unlikely. Meanwhile, back to the keyboard... Yours,
                                                    Jon

ObCD: Queens of the Stone Age - _Songs for the Deaf_
--
"I recognise that I have transgressed many of the precepts of the divine
law, and that I am subjected by various vices and iniquities, disobedient
to the words of the divine mystery brought unto me and a worshipper of the
delights of this military age." Marquis Borrell of Barcelona, 955 A.D.

             (Jonathan Jarrett, Birkbeck College London)