Hawkwind - Exeter 7 April 2006

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.

Edited by sonic_assassin

Nice pics - I last saw them a couple of years back - spring tour 04 - but it was just the 3 of em. Very low key and not the best introduction for a Hawkwind virgin. My own Hawkwind first was 1972 - the Space Ritual tour - man was that good - I hardly remember a thing LOL!

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!!!

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 :)

Freaky photos! One band I`ve never seen and wish I had. Don`t think they ever played Montreal.

sonic_assassin wrote: 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!!!

My memories of that gig?

I went with a group of mates
There was a big crush to get in
Took a while to find some of the right stuff
We ended up near the back
The band came on VERY late
The moment Stacia disrobed ("my god she's actually done it")
It was loud

That's it. No more, no less. I remember nothing about the music so I am thankful to have the album to help ....