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Hawkwind in the Guardian...


Old Man Riva

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Saw them so many times during the 80's and 90's that I lost count. A least twice or more a year. My all time favourite band for decades. Need to listen back to the piles of records now. Of course, I'm a huge fan of the Lemmy period. Was more than happy when Night of the Hawks was released hoping Lemmy was coming back... They opened my ears to MUSIC and to fretless bass : seek for the album ! We even did a tribute tune called Lemmy with one of my bands : I was making some noise in E as in French Les Mi's (pronounced the same way as Lemmy) means The E's. Looping the loop !

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Saw Hawkwind last November at Guildford. A friend of mine was doing the sound for them so I got to meet some of the band and crew on their tour bus before the gig. All lovely guys, very friendly and funny. They brought on special guest Eric Clapton for half a dozen songs towards the end of the gig, EC and Dave Brock being old friends from long ago. I watched most of the gig in the wings behind the monitor guy, and managed a brief chat with EC. A really enjoyable evening.

(Oh yeah, I sold the bass player my old Trace AH500 head too!) 😊

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My introduction to Hawkwind was on my one and only Donington, 1982... aged 16 thought they were cr*p on the day. Asked a 6th form mate for a recommendation, he lent me Live 79... even bl@*dy worse to my ears.

Several years later finally had a (very cheap) pair of proper stereo headphones, plugged them into the family music centre to listen to Janice Long one Saturday and about the first thing I heard was "Master Of The Universe" from Space Ritual... yoy!

Decades on, now having a couple of mates one of whom has been a huge fan for ages and one who has seen them 380+ times (mostly tagging along with his brother who was some part of their crew) I have learned that a) they aren't a band to see at an outdoor festival; and b) they are actually rather better than my initial impression!

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I was first exposed to Hawkwind really late - 1981. My first Hawkwind gig was on the Choose Your Masques tour at Hammy Oden, so pleased to  have the live CD that eventually came out. I've seen Hawkwind more than any other band (although the Stranglers were close for a few years).

I love both the wild and improvisational extended jams and the snappy Calvert songs.

I drifted away a bit in the 90s, but in the last five or six years they have brought out a succession of excellent albums with The Machine Stops and the latest Carnivorous being up there with many of the 'classic' albums.

I saw them in Glasgow last year and hope to see them again once this nonsense ends!

My secret ambition is to start up a band playing very much in the Hawkwind mode.

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I loved all the early albums, particularly Hall of the Mountain Grill.  I saw them a few times in the early 80s.  I left the country in 1984 and didn't come back until 2000, then I saw them again in 2001 or 2002.  Brilliant band.

I remember seeing quite a few fans wearing white lab coats during the 1980s gigs, anyone know what that was about?  I thought they must be some sort of hardcore Hawkwind followers.

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1 minute ago, ProfJames said:

Darts?....hmmmm.........

I saw Darts a few times, just before they got well known too. Brilliant band. We booked them at my college for not much money, and in the interim they had a massive hit with ‘Daddy Cool’ yet still honoured the gig. Wonderful singers and musicians and very funny too.

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2 hours ago, BillyBass said:

I loved all the early albums, particularly Hall of the Mountain Grill.  I saw them a few times in the early 80s.  I left the country in 1984 and didn't come back until 2000, then I saw them again in 2001 or 2002.  Brilliant band.

I remember seeing quite a few fans wearing white lab coats during the 1980s gigs, anyone know what that was about?  I thought they must be some sort of hardcore Hawkwind followers.

Technicians of Spaceship Hawkwind. Followers of Dr. Technical! (one of Brock's many aliases).

Back in the early 80s the audience was split roughly into three, leather, labcoats and afghans 🙂

Sadly my afghan got attacked by rats and my labcoat is no more, so when I went to see Hawkwind for the first time in over 25 years last November I bought a NOS one from the 80s and used special fabric crayons to draw the cover of Warrior on the back.

To my amazement I was the only person in a thousand or more wearing a labcoat!

image.png.8f72f114030978f335f560ee249f1959.png

image.thumb.png.6b25a016116b47e367c4109a1e114841.png

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8 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Technicians of Spaceship Hawkwind. Followers of Dr. Technical! (one of Brock's many aliases).

Back in the early 80s the audience was split roughly into three, leather, labcoats and afghans 🙂

Sadly my afghan got attacked by rats and my labcoat is no more, so when I went to see Hawkwind for the first time in over 25 years last November I bought a NOS one from the 80s and used special fabric crayons to draw the cover of Warrior on the back.

To my amazement I was the only person in a thousand or more wearing a labcoat!

image.png.8f72f114030978f335f560ee249f1959.png

image.thumb.png.6b25a016116b47e367c4109a1e114841.png

 

Ah, thanks for the explanation - the only time I saw Hawkwind live was sometime in the early 80s (Preston Guildhall), and to be honest the only things I can remember are the lights and the labcoats, but never understood the latter!!! Just for the record, I'd probably have fit more in the leather (and denim) camp... 😎

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