PRESENTS
A
DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME SPECIAL -
FELLOW WEBMASTER STARFARER REVEALS HOW HE LOST HIS HAWKWIND VIRGINITY!!
My first Hawkwind gig was on
4th October 1977, at the Southampton Gaumont. I was 17 and went with 3 friends from
school, although I was the biggest Hawkwind fan of the 4 of us; there was this slightly
ridiculous thing at school of each person having 'their' band, and Hawkwind were 'my'
band. (The other 3 laid claim to Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple
respectively.)
We were all from Salisbury and no decent bands seemed to have played there since David
Bowie in 1973. So anything we wanted to see, had to be in either Southampton, Portsmouth
or Bournemouth. We all went down there on the train and for some reason I remember I was
carrying a white plastic carrier bag with 6 enormous bars of chocolate in it. I had to
check this in at the cloakroom. We were all closely frisked for beer, cameras and drugs,
by the gorilla-like security: huge fat 40 year-old blokes (a bit like Dave Law is now :-)
(I'm only 37 if you don't mind!) wearing T-shirts with 'Gentle Giants' on them. This was a
misnomer. The Gaumont was a familiar venue, an old-style provincial theatre, with seating,
and our seats were in the Circle. Anyone who stood up soon felt the attentions of the
Gentle Giants.
There was always a huge amount of unofficial merchandise on sale outside the Gaumont,
relating not just to the band who were playing that night, but to all the top name UK
bands; official merchandise was on sale in the foyer. So the routine at the Gaumont was to
check out the unofficial stuff outside before the gig, but not buy any; go in and buy the
real stuff. A programme was always an essential purchase. Then we would take out seats and
wait for the support band to come on.
On this particular tour it was Bethnal, coincidentally the 1st punk band I'd seen. Not
that they were standard ramalama fare, as George Csapo played a violin and they covered
The Who's "Baba O'Reilly" in their set. They seemed pretty loud & the sound
was decent. They got a good reception from the fans.
DRESSED LIKE THAT IT MUST BE STEPPENWOLF! |
Waiting for the main band to come on was always the time to read the programme. This was
the Quark tour & as Hawkwind programmes went, it was a pretty decent one - not
unintelligible gibberish like the Hawklords one I found myself reading a year later at the
Portsmouth Guildhall.... a few pictures, wow, were we going to see something like this?
And looking down at the stage, there was something huge at the back, which I hadn't
noticed during Bethnal's set, but there it was in the big centre spread in the programme,
all lit up: Atomhenge.
Finally the house lights dimmed and the feeling of anticipation wells up - shadowy figures
walk onto the stage and fumble obscurely with something or other. Then - a touch of
eastern-sounding violin, some percussion, and BAM! They go straight into Hassan-i-Sahba
and it was simply awesome. They were very loud but crystal clear, and it sounded as full
as the album version (the Quark Strangness & Charm album had been out since the summer
& in my possession for almost as long). As soon as the main riff started, the stage
lights blazed into existence & we saw Bob Calvert done up as Rudolph Valentino,
sporting attitudes with a sword. I can't remember the entire setlist, but I seem to recall
Wind of Change with the old light show sequence: back-projected images of a tree, with a
city growing up around it , then the city crumbling until only the tree is left. That was
a staple of the lightshow back then. The entire Quark album was probably covered, I
remember them playing Spirit of the Age with backing tapes providing the same weird noises
as on the album. Dave Brock was in control of these tapes, and had a console at the back
of the stage studded with green lights. Amazing to think that in those pre-midi days, a
flesh and blood rhythm section could lock in with backing tapes so tightly (and thank you
Doug for putting this thought into my head :-).
I'm pretty sure Robot and High Rise were also played, and these were new to me as it would
be over a year before we heard them on vinyl (PXR5). Robot in particular made an
impression as a very powerful track. Everything about this gig was awe-inspiring, from the
fabulous sound, to the material, to the sheer thrill of seeing Hawkwind in the flesh
(these people were *gods*), but then there was Atomhenge to top it all off. Just to see
the size of the thing was impressive enough, but when it started lighting up in time with
the music, the feeling was 'Now, how can anyone top *that*?'.
They finished the set and went offstage with the audience going as berserk as the Gentle
Giants would permit, i.e. cheering ourselves hoarse. After a couple of laryngitis-inducing
minutes of this hollering in the darkness, Hawkwind trooped back on stage, having just
played the best gig I've ever seen, and proceeded to give us the best encore ever. There
were three numbers in it, and not two-minute perfunctory versions either. They did Master
of the Universe, Brainstorm, and something else I can't remember. As for how these
versions sounded, check out the Weird 3 CD (which is live stuff mostly from 1977) - it was
very very similar sounding to that. And of course we all yelled for Silver Machine and
didn't get it, as Hawkwind weren't playing it in those days....
BOB DOES A FINE DAVID COVERDALE IMPERSONATION - WHAT A ROCK GOD |
Finally it was over and we filed out of the hall, to hit the unofficial merchandise stand
outside. I can't remember if I bought anything or not, but I did remember to pick up my
carrier bag which still had the chocolate bars inside it; in retrospect it was surprising
that the Gentle Giants didn't use it to sustain their flabby bulk, and I think I probably
had enough of it there to have fed all of them. We all got the train back to Salisbury OK,
but I remember nothing else that happened pretty much for the rest of that year, let alone
that night.
So, that was my first Hawkwind experience, and I have to say it's still the best one I've
had, although a couple of others have run it very close for the sheer amount of enjoyment
I got out of them. I heard that Atomhenge still exists somewhere or other, and is lying
dismembered and mouldering in someone's back garden. If only it could be put back together
for the next Hawkfest!
