Hawkwind 40 Porchester Hall

[Steve Swann]

Oh and it was also great meeting Alan of Tangledwoof, who I expected
to be a guy with a full professional photographer's rig!  Alan, I'm
still flatly amazed that you get the kind of shots you do with that
consumer grade camera - Tangled Woof captures the look and feel of a
Hawkwind concert better than any site I know (it's where I point
people to when ask me "so what's supposed to be so special about this
light show I keep hearing about?").  I'm looking forward to seeing
what you got this time...  :)

Steve

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Steve Swann<swann1066 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>