Rock & Blues thoughts

[Alan Linsley]

 --- Arin Komins <akomins at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU> wrote: >
> For when you folks (who are attending Rock and Blues) get back: gig
> reports, please.
>
> Arin

Ok Arin (& Doug P), if you insist :-)

Let's try and give you a taste of the atmosphere first - just think of
Rock n Blues as your classic biker fest.  A field in the middle of a
gorgeous part of the English countryside turned into a carpet of mud
and crushed beer cans in a matter of hours.  You had your tent selling
official Outlaws MC merchandise, which I thought was a bit bizarre -
when I were a lad I was taught the Angels belted you if they caught you
wearing anything resembling "their" colours, now they sell them to you.
If I'd stayed til Saturday I could have witnessed the Best Beer Belly
competition ("and that's just for the ladies!" we were told...arf).
The weather had been terrible earlier in the today, hence the mud, but
by the time the bands got started it was a warm, pleasant summer's
evening.  With the bloke next to you urinating on your boots,
obviously.

I completely missed Rainbow Rising but apparently Dumpy guested with
them.  Heard a bit of Budgie on the way in (Panzer Division Destroyed)
and saw them round off their set with Breadfan (of course) for the
encore.  They were pretty solid, wish I'd seen the whole set, it was
nice to see they're still going.  I was really looking forward to
seeing Molly Hatchet coz I used to be partial to a bit of the ol'
Southern Fried Boogie, but I couldn't stomach the singer spouting his
nonsense about the US military keeping us all "free" (you know the
kinda stuff, "our boys in Vietnam" blah blah), and when they started
abusing an audience member who was videocam-ing them I decided to
wander off to the beer tent (my Molly Hatchet LPs are going to the
charity shop).  The singer carried on trying to get the audience to
shout "Hell yeah!" to which those around me at least replied with 2
entirely different words (the second of which was "off").

Hawkwind took the stage about 10:40/45 after some delays due to
problems with Simon's keybds.  Line-up was same as the May tour - Dave,
Simon, Alan, Richard & Arthur - and the set was basically a truncated
version of the May set, probably because they were supposed to be on at
10:30 and had to be off by midnight (although they inevitably overran a
bit).

I've already forgotten the exact set list, but they definitely started
with Master of the Universe (no Time Captives), then Song of the
Gremlin, Time & Confusion/Prelude, The Watcher and The Right Stuff,
which contained a bit a jam in the middle with Arthur intoning some
lyrics that could have been a bit 7by7-ish but I'm not sure and was
rounded off with a few bars of Paranoia.  It's the middle order I
always forget.  I think it was Sun Ray next (with Arthur wearing a
different sun-on-his-head thing), then Brainbox Pollution (the only
number that wasn't from the May tour) and then Angela Android, but I
may be missing something in there.  They certainly finished off with
Golden Void (*without* A&B), Where Are They Now? and Silver Machine,
then encored with Assassins of Allah.  Dumpy guested for SM & Assassins
but I don't think his guitar was properly connected, I certainly
couldn't hear it.  He did a good job dueting with Dave on the "It is
written" bit of Assassins.

I enjoyed it, and it looked like the band did too.  It was a shortened,
slightly more biker-friendly open-air version of the May tour.  The
band were tight, all the rockier numbers were solid and powerful.
Arthur is still on form and seems to be enjoying himself.  Simon's
violin was clear and strong, long may it remain so.  During several
numbers (Master & Gremlin and others) there was an awful reverberating
noise coming out of Simon's keybd, it was almost as if one his keys got
stuck, and it drowned out everything else.  There seemed to be more
synthy sounds (bubbles and spacey noises as opposed to keybds) in the
mix than in May but maybe that's just me noticing them more.  Arthur
still hasn't got the words right on Master.  The first chunk of The
Watcher was played with synth drums for some odd reason, odd for such a
rocky number, I guess they were just playing around with it for fun but
it sounded "false" to me.  Brainbox was superb, especially Alan.
Golden Void/Where is still a massive highpoint and worked fine without
A&B.  As ever Simon's violin on Assassins was spine-tingling stuff.
The new numbers are getting better, I thought Sun Ray was tighter than
May and the younger members of the crowd really got jumping to Angela
Android (and the Palestine bit of Assassins).  Unfortunately, as with
May, Dave seemed to be spending time poking around in his machinery
rather than playing guitar at some points.  And, as usual, some of the
gaps between songs were waaaay too long, people around me started
losing interest and were just chatting.  HW really need to remember how
to maintain momentum, build an atmosphere and hold an audience with
them throughout the show, it's the difference between a gig and a
rehearsal chaps.

The one number I was hoping for and didn't get was Seven By Seven,
which was dropped during the May tour due to Dave's flu.  I really hope
they bring that back soon.  So, overall I was happy and encouraged and
had my appetite whetted for Hawkfest and The Melkweg.  And the World
Tour of course, mustn't forget that :-)

AL

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