Hawkfest 2003 thoughts

[Alan Linsley]

Well I thought that was the fantastic.  The festival was excellently
organised, just the right scale, good layout, plenty of space.  I
enjoyed my "veggie crap" from the cafe (sorry carnivores), they did
well to keep the food going all weekend.  And I was particularly
impressed by the big inflatable phallic lighting system nearby.

Beautiful part of the country too.  I went on a 30 mile cycle ride on
the Sat morning, nice scenery and FLAT!  And did everybody notice the
names of the 2 villages down the A6 from the site?  "Brock" and
"Barton"!  Good omens there I think.

Best non-HW music for me was Arthur Brown and Instant Flight, who
played a superb set of 60s-style psychedelic pop on Friday night.  Nice
to see Arthur doing his flaming headset routine.  Astonishing to think
IF had never gigged with Arthur until then.  Big Amongst Sheep were
also pretty good.  Didn't see much of the other bands, except some
pretty indifferent stuff from Relentless and Little Big Men.

Nice to see Dave joining Spacehead for a cracking version of Choose
Your Masques, and then we were treated to one of the best HW
performances I have ever seen.  With Harvey's set featuring 6 other
Hawks we effectively had more or less 3.5 hrs of HW music, and damn
good it was too.  Setlist for those interested -

Harvey Bainbridge set (approx 8:30 - 9:45)
------------------------------------------
Coded Languages (w. DB/AD/RC/HLL)
Waiting For Tomorrow - instrumental jam version (w. DB/RC/HLL/Dibs)
Waiting For Tomorrow - with vocals this time! (w. DB/RC/HLL/Dibs)
Mutation Zone (w. Martin Griffin & Dibs)
Dreamworker...
...(sounded like) Stonehenge Decoded....
...Freefall
(I think HLL came back for Freefall but I can't remember)

Hawkwind set (approx 9:45 - midnight)
-------------------------------------
Arrival In Utopia
Time Captives
The Watcher
Magnu
Chronoglide Skyway
The Right Stuff
Wings
Hurry On Sundown
Brainbox Pollution
Spirit of the Age
Green Finned Demon
Abducted
Angela Android
Assault & Battery
The Golden Void
Where Are They Now?
Assassins of Allah
Master of the Universe

Particular memories and favourite moments -
Dave telling us after Arrival... that our Utopia was here, one of the
best versions of Magnu I've ever heard, Kris & Tone taking a
well-deserved on-stage bow somewhere in that set, scary overheard
projections of blokes jumping out of planes during Freefall, Dave
bringing on a chair during Wings to sit on but pushing it away coz he
just carried on standing up and thrashing that guitar for us
(yeaaayy!), Dave taking the mick out of Simon for nipping off to the
toilet before he was due to play Chronoglide Skyway, the Submarine
Magician Returning To His Home for the first time in years, Where Are
They Now? going from strength to strength and all 10 of them onstage at
the end for an absolute belter of a version of Master of the Universe.
Who needs Silver Machine eh?

Spent Sunday loitering around the site chatting to other Hawkfans too
numerous to list, waiting for our free CDs.  Then went home early, just
felt that any other music after that HW set would be just too much of
an anti-climax.  Hope those of you that stayed had a great Sunday night
with the Levellers.

The only gripe I can think of was that blasted dance tent - too loud
and too often, Hawkestra foyer all over again IMHO.

Thanks for the organisers for a great and very memorable event, well
done, and thanks to all the people who took time to chat, it was great
to meet you all.  Let's hope we get another Hawkfest next year.

AL

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