HW: Sabbaticals

[nickmedford at HOTMAIL.COM]

>>4) What made you come back?
>
>Excitement over seeing Nik's band in '94, followed by Hawkwind the next
>year, with Ron Tree, who got the band out of the trio's "stasis" condition
>and made things more exciting to me.

Despite my earlier lukewarm comments on Ron, it's probably true he
introduced a necessary jolt of energy. In fact I've never really made my
mind up about him- didn't see HW on the '95 or '97 tours when by all
accounts he was contributing more.

I thought the "Calvert replacement" problem was particularly evident at the
Astoria Xmas party in 2000, (the 'Yule Ritual' gig), when he sang just one
song of his own (which was left off the album) and was otherwise only
onstage to sing Calvert numbers. Which he did pretty well, but it felt a
little like seeing a tribute act.

Nick