There was no support band, and, with five minutes to go before Hawkwind were due to kick off, the crush at the bar was four deep, which didn't look very promising. Going in late, I don't know what was playing as I entered the auditorium, but the first one I took heed of, once I was in position and generally settled down, was Sword of the East.

Hawkwind don't do much gigging these days, so I was soon surprised to note that they were pretty "tight"; they didn't have fumbling gaps between tracks like sometimes they do. Tonight, they kicked ass. I was also pleased to find that the keyboard noodling was dropped, and that tracks didn't start off strongly but then "fizzle out" or meander into something nondescript. Yeah, I thought it was their best gig for quite a few years.

My early anxiety that they were gonna rehash Chronicles was soon put to rest. The rough set-list (and with some omissions due to personal memory board failures) was:

Sword of the East
Seven by Seven
Money Tree
Angela Android
Lord of Light
Brainstorm
Psi Power
Brainbox Pollution
Upside Down
Psychedelic Warlords
Hassan I Sahba
Spirit of the Age
Lighthouse

Line-up: dunno who was on drums. Dave and Alan were there, there was a chap playing sax, and also a bald guy on keyboards. Broadly speaking, the style was standard 2000-onwards, ie similar to Canterbury Fayre 2001, Exeter 2003, etc.

This was around the 30th time I've seen them, and previously - for one reason or another - I'd had very little disposable income to spend at the merchandising stalls. This time, I took along £80 for DVDs, t-shirts and posters. Yay! And, guess what? - there was no stall!

general rating: if Space Ritual is 10 then this was 7.

Captain Slog: additional.

Inbetween shaking my hair around in convoluted patterns, I took a few pix. Here's three.

That guy in the middle is not a day over 55. Bloody kids, they get everywhere, these days...

Open letter to people at gigs who use flash when they're 30 feet away from the stage: don't. It just makes you look like a default-happy nob-end, and unnecessaily distracts people around you. It wastes battery power, too :)

The guy on drums, that's gotta be Richard Chadwick?  I reckon it is.

Thanx for the nice comments about the pix... In this day and age, there's little excuse for not posting pix of a gig immediately afer the event. (Being pissed and/or stoned would be a bloody good excuse, by the way....)

I do wish I'd seen Hawkwind on their Space ritual tour, but i was only 14 at the time, and was more into T Rex and Slade and other "glam rock" back then. Eeeek!!!

WAY cool pics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   I have seen Hawkwind only once in Nottingham several years ago.  It was a double-header with Gong/Hawkwind and was AWESOME!!!  Was cool to see Simon on violin, though, I was hoping he'd be a little more assertive in his playing.  (btw... I came from the US for that gig--just a few months after 9/11)

At that time I had NO idea that I'd be touring with Nik Turner and Harvey Bainbridge.   Never know!! 

Cyndee

I dunno if you're allowed to take pix at Hawkwind gigs, these days, so I was pleased to be using a camera the size of a pack of 20 cigarettes. It's the Casio QV-R52 to which I guess much of the picture credit should go, and once you've supressed the auto-flash, even the most diligent steward is unlikely to suss you.

There was talk before the gig of how the stewards were going to enforce the "no smoking" rule in the autitorium. Their mission statement, on the backs of their t-shirts, was

SECURITY

Total Control

-which sounded rather ominous. However, judging by the number of spliffs being lit, I guess their eventual control fell somewhat short of total :)

According to the info at  http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/hawkwind/30years_ofhawks.html - http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/hawkwind/30years_ofhawks.html  (Hawkeye) they've played Montreal once - 32 years ago, on 14 April 1974.

Sorry to be such an appalling anorak