HW: Astoria last night

[Jonathan Jarrett]

	Dear All,
		  I should have written my review straight away! Now I 
find that I've lost the piece of paper I took the setlist down on. So 
this is just some collected thoughts, followed by an attempt to 
reconstruct the setlist which is probably way off.

	Firstly, this was an excellent gig. I came home and pulled out 
four or five of the albums because I'd been re-enthused about the 
material, which is pretty good going. Secondly, Dibs fills the bass slot 
much better than I'd feared. His attempts to be Ron Tree on vocals are 
surprisingly good considering that he isn't Ron, and his Calvert 
versions are also as good as needed. He did seem to really only have two 
speeds of bass, blanga and fast blanga, but I've accused Alan of similar 
in his time; Dibs and Richard made for a good solid combination and Dibs 
wasn't beneath putting in a few flash bits here and there for those that 
were listening. So yes, if any were in doubt, I think you can now call 
him true Hawk.

	The venue was so packed that, arriving late as we did, we could 
barely get four feet in. There had been a huge queue still when we 
arrived two hours after doors! Judging by reports of the first band, it 
can't have been them that did this, surely, yet this has been a slow 
year for the Hawks and I've been to HW gigs at the Astoria that must 
have been half as full. Was it just that no-one else was on who might 
draw people away this night, for once? Amazing crowd atmosphere anyway. 
But it did mean that it took me a long time to be sure that Jason was 
there in the corner, because I never saw him. I suppose if someone told 
me it was just his parts on disc I'd have to believe them.

	Tim and his keytar were quite ridiculous. Well done sir! He 
looked more like a poseur rockstar than anyone who ever called 
themselves Hi-Ti Moonweed should be able to get away with, and although 
I think that really, when what you're playing has no *strings* pinch 
harmonics are more than gratuitous, he filled what might otherwise have 
been a lead gap and also did excellent work with the theremin. 
Interested, and not a little glad, to see that he's handed over vocal 
duties on `Lighthouse', which Dave handled well.

	There was no `Assassins of Allah'! And no `Brainstorm' either, 
though I was sure it would be in the encore. Bold choices and I for one 
am not sorry to see `Assassins' go for a bit. I'm sure it'll be back 
though. On the whole the setlist was a grand mix of old and new, 
including one actual new song which isn't the worst thing I ever heard 
them do (cue a poll for what that actually was, mind...) and `Alien I 
Am' which I don't think I ever expected to hear again.

	The only blemishes for me, aside from having to physically fight 
to get to the bar, were the musicalisations of the tone poems. `Sonic 
Attack' *has* been done credibly with a musical backing, though possibly 
not since _Zones_... but actually sung is a very bad idea, simply 
because the lines don't scan and it must inevitably sound too 
artificial. It loses menace done like this and Dibs has enough spooky in 
his voice to do it straight very well; I hope they stop messing about 
with it. Likewise, Dave's reading of `Welcome to the Future' was so warm 
and optimistic that it made one wonder if he'd ever really read the 
words he was reciting. That one gets ever more relevant but you wouldn't 
know it from that performance. As a result it's down on the lost 
scribble paper as `WttF?'

	A passing reflection: if Hawkwind took all the new sections and 
music they've written for their old songs, and all the new lyrics 
they've occasionally sandwiched into midsections and so on, we'd surely 
have half a new album with almost no effort...

	Visuals also were good; sound was excellent, everyone audible 
and no-one crashing the mix (though I wouldn't have been so upset if 
Dave's guitar had been louder), all performances excellent, my love for 
live Hawkwind properly rekindled! Just, next time, can it be the Forum 
or whatever it's currently called so that we can all move?

Setlist reconstruction effort, then: we came in during...

Aerospaceage Inferno
Space Love [new one on an old theme, also mentioning a robot called 
	Angela or so Kirsten insisted]
Paradox/You Know You're Only Dreaming/Paradox [the midsection was the 
	best bit of this, I've never been quite convinced by a post-
	Lemmy/mellotronless version of this track. Also, I'm not sure
	that this was the one that got the `Dreaming' midsection but I
	can't work out where else it would have been, unless it was...]
Arrival in Utopia [with extra words by Dibs]
Damnation Alley [done _Palace Springs_ style but good stuff]
Orgone Accumulator [I was so happy to hear this]
Robot [excellent version but I miss Simon House very badly]
Lighthouse
Abducted
Alien I Am
Master of the Universe [Dibs plays the Anderson bass part, I prefer
	this]
Sonic Attack [with reservations as said above]
Time We Left (This World Today) [also done à la _Palace Springs_]
Silver Machine [as Guy said, this was excellent]
Welcome to the Future
	*
Flying Doctor [clumsy at the turnarounds but always good to hear it]

	I feel sure there were two songs in that encore, but I can't 
work out the extra one. Anyway, I'm pretty sure everything I've listed 
there actually happened, even if "not necessarily in the right order" 
:-) More like this gig I say, only if possible with `Where Are They Now' 
snuck in somewhere and Simon brought out of retirement, yours,
								Jon

ObLP: Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush - _Tales of the Unexpected_
-- 
"When fortune wanes, of what assistance are quantities of elephants?"
	    (Juvaini, Afghan Muslim chronicler, c. 1206)
 Jon Jarrett, Fitzwilliam Museum, jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk