HW: All the Christmas Parties No. 2: HW at Walthamstow

[Jon Jarrett]

On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, Eric Siegerman wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 22, 2003 at 12:29:42AM +0000, Jon Jarrett wrote:
> >         [Litmus], well, they're really quite good aren't they.
>
> To me they seemed, um, mostly very loud -- and that was with my
> 25-dB plugs in.

        You live in some world where loud isn't nearly the same as good
then? :-)

> Ah, well that's it then.  I never was much into either, having
> come to HW via prog and Kraftwerk, and via synthy classical
> renditions by Walter/Wendy Carlos and imitators thereof.

        Prog and Kraftwerk could also be loud I'm sure. But probably not
very metal.

> > [HW's] sound was OK for once, > but there was one spot stage right
> that shone right in my eyes for most of > the set and did cause me
> some synesthesic can't-hear-properly > problems. Bah.
>
> Ummmm ... I think that actually was my fault :-(
>
> If I recall, it was originally aimed above peoples' heads, to
> shine oil projections on the back wall and ceiling.  But for
> Lighthouse I wobbled a prism around in front of the lens to make
> bits of oil projection dance all around the room.  Very cool
> effect ... but to see what I was doing I had to turn away from
> the projector, and so to keep the prism aligned properly I leaned
> a finger *very lightly* on top of the lens just for the tactile
> feedback ... but the projector was so heavy that my little finger
> was enough to make it kind of sag down in its mounting, so that
> it shone right in peoples' eyes once I took the prism away.  I
> tried to re-aim the thing afterward, but it was too heavy for me
> to do that during the set without potentially making the
> situation even worse, so I had to leave it.
>
> Sorry, Jon and everyone else up there!

        No, if that was all you were doing :-) you weren't to blame. This
one was there all gig.

> > Arthur Brown was very himself, but the band don't really know what to do
> > witgh him any more than they do with Blake sometimes. The songs don't
> > *need* a man with a three-octave range singing them, they were never
> > designed for that sort of voice and he doesn't have anything much he can
> > do with them.
>
> Musically perhaps, though I thought he found his way into the
> material as the tour progressed.  But for stage presence, sheer
> front-man-ness, I like him.
>
> I agree about his talent; he can do that Ian-Gillan wail far
> better than Gillan himself can these days.  Damn I'd love to hear
> him sing Highway Star!

        Very true. It would be rather fine. But there's so little of the
real DP left nowadays we can hardly reduce them any further...

        He is a class frontman. But Dave isn't giving up the second front
man spot any more, and so any frontman has to keep stepping back a
minute. Never been quite sure that this was an ideal way to manage things.

> There were persistent rumours that Simon would put in an
> appearance, so I was eagerly awaiting Spiral Galaxy, but it was
> not to be.

        Does *anyone* know what's up with Simon? I keep hearing he's ill
but whatever it is he's got it must be intermittent because people keep
thinking he'll turn up...

> >         Arthur Brown returned for `Time Captives', which wa sprobably
> > quite good from the floor where Brown standing on an amp to give a
> > something like nine-foot height to solemly declaim from would have made
> > the whole thing very haunting.

> > From above it all though I was rather bored
> > with it. The lyrics were lame; I was expecting better by Arthur Brown, and
> > it has no progression either lyrically or musically.
>
> Agreed.  The song left me rather cold.

        The other Arthur Brown number, I discover on purchasing the Crazy
World album, was `Time' from that same album. Or at least that has very
similar lyrics.

> But there was the one night he flubbed a line of Aerospaceage
> Inferno -- made the natural mistake of singing "set the controls
> for the heart of the sun" -- and then on the spot improvised two
> more lines to rhyme with it!  I remain in absolute awe of that.

        That's good going all right. Yours,
                                            Jon


--
"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)