Hawkwind 40 Porchester Hall

[Steve Swann]

Well, hell.  I've been trying to do a writeup of the Porchester shows
now for a couple of days, and there's just too much to cover.  So let
me start with the important thing, by thanking some people.

Mike Holmes and Jill Strobridge - I spent so much time with the two of
you that you were practically my hosts for the event.  After chatting
online for almost 20 years (!!) it was great to finally meet both of
you.  I had a great time, thanks much for the hospitality.
Arin & Rich - it was great to meet you, thanks especially for
introducing me to so many people that I otherwise wouldn't have met.
We hadn't talked all that much online previously, I see now that was a
mistake.
Steve PXR5 - Is that your real last name?  :)  Glad to meet you and
thanks for the good company.
Bernhard, Christos and Rainer - Glad to make the acquaintance of the
Kollektor Kings :)  I had a great time talking with you guys.
Maxine & ??? - It was really fun hanging out with you (and damn I'm
embarrassed at forgetting your friend's name)!  Although some day I
want a coherent explanation of how we ended up in an Austrian bar at
2am with guys in lederhosen singing Ein Prosit.  It must have been the
fault of those Dutch guys!
The Hawkwalk Gang - most especially Jimski for his work in writing up
and leading the tour.  Steve Youles, Steve Bishop, Andreas, Mick, Jon
and the 20 or so other Hawkfans that I met on the walk... somewhere
there are a lot of pictures of this group, I hope someone puts them up
and captions them with people's names for those like me who wouldn't
remember their head if it wasn't screwed on.

So, the shows.  There's been a lot of talk about the quality of the
pre-show material.  Hawkwind doing its Elves of Silly Berry excuse me
Silbury act, the various other bands and performers, the Q&A sessions,
Huw, Tarantism, Bob Kerr, et al.  I look at it this way.  I had
expected most of the day to be a kind of laid back party with the band
going on at the end of the day.  Instead Hawkwind, various members of
Hawkwind, and other musical guests were up on stage most of the bloody
day, giving us a show to watch if we felt like watching it.

I went back and forth between hanging out with the numerous and
wonderful Hawkfans who I'd never had a chance to meet before and
watching the various shows on stage.  On Friday I watched pretty much
everything, except for a brief interlude for food (I had ordered from
the food service, but when I realized that it was going to take 40
minutes, Jill and I went out instead).  On Saturday I spent more time
mingling, which had the detrimental effect of causing me to miss the
Elves' performance of The Only Ones (which they hadn't done on
Friday).  Grrrrrr!  But bottom line I thought the performances were a
great thing.  I mean, counting the Elves, I basically got to see
Hawkwind play 4 times this weekend, what's not to like about that?

I liked TOSH a lot - in effect, TOSH went a fair way towards
satisfying my craving for Space Ritual era heavy acid rock Hawkwind.
I agree with the people who said the drum sound was too aggressive,
that could be just an over-amplification issue.  I also had a chat
afterward with TOSH's guitar player (Dave's guitar tech) who's an
incredibly nice guy.

I ran in Dibs in the hall at one point and told him he's my hero - the
fan who becomes a member of the band, which is the best story in the
world!  Later when a handful of us were having a beer with Niall in
the Porchester, I found out that he's got a very similar story.  No
wonder the band is looking like such a happy bunch these days.  ;-)

As for the "main event", both nights were storming gigs.  The band was
spot on, and they blew the roof off the place.  Hell, if I never saw a
better gig than that, I'd still count myself a lucky man, because I
saw it *twice*.  ;-)

Hawkwind... FORTY FUCKING YEARS and still rocking like seven kinds of thunder!

Last of all, I have to thank Dave Brock, who has never met me, but who
has shaped most of my adult life with his music.

Steve