DAVE REVIEWS
SPACED OUT IN LONDON
I'm sure many fans were caught "on the hop" at the Astoria when they found that this album was being sold. It's been muted on the official site for sometime as a possible future release but nothing more so I'm sure that it's appearance was a surprise to many when it appeared in this form.
Recorded at the Walthamstow Assembly Hall on December 13th 1992 at the end of the bands short Christmas tour of that year. It was also an important date for me as it heralded my first Hawkwind gig since 2002. It was indeed a fine night, which was a good thing as I had just brought the web space that is now the Hawkwind Museum ( It could have been interesting if I thought that they were a load of crap! ) although I have to say the recording sounds a lot different to how I remember it. We were stood right near the mixing desk which is by common consent the best place to hear a gig from and while the sound wasn't bad it certainly wasn't the crystal clear reproduction that you've got here but that's not a criticism just an observation, anyway I'm sure what you want to hear about is the album itself, so here goes -
Earth Calling - Hawkwind have never been the type of band that has the big theatrical opening at the start of a show and this is probably as near to that as you'll get, Richard repeats "This Is Earth Calling" over what appears to be an improvised little piece from the band, don't worry though if you're not the most patient of people as it quickly crashes into -
Aerospaceage Inferno - The old Calvert classic is given a new lease of life by the line up of Brock, Chadwick, Davey, Blake and Brown. From a personal perspective this was a real treat to hear as it had always been Ejection and The Right Stuff that I'd heard before, the song keeps it's basic structure for some 3 minutes before a spacey jam ensues with Alan keeping things pinned down whilst Blake and Brock do their thing over the top, you get the impression that the band are really enjoying themselves and before long the song proper reappears with Arthur singing his heart out and the rest of the band playing it very tight. The song finishes and after a brief pause we're into -
Angels Of Death - To me this is Hawkwind at their most straight ahead, a darn fine Heavy rock song and this version is no disappointment. That said this track also appears on both the Yule Ritual, which admitidly did have Jez Huggett on sax which gave it quite a different feel and also the Canterbury Fayre double CD and it has to be noted that there's not a tremendous difference in these 2 versions. Still a good song is a good song and it's always a track that really gets the fans fired up when played live. Another abrupt finish to this one, a quick tune up from Alan, some banter from Dave and it's time for
Out Of The Shadows - I'll be honest here and say this is probably my least favourite track that the band played that night, I'd really like it if the songs from Space Bandits finally got to me like a lot of the bands other material, a case of "all the perseverance was worth it in the end" but I fear that on this occasion this will never be the case. To my ear the performance sounds fine and Dave lays down some nice guitar but I'm afraid I'm more of a song person and this one really leaves me cold , for all it's 7 + minutes in length, to me there seems to be very little substance in there. Still you can't keep all the people happy all of the time and I have to say that the band redeem themselves superbly on the next track which is -
Time Captives - It may be a solo track from Arthur Brown but if ever there was one track that Hawkwind should have written but never did then it has to be this one, like a bespoke suit, it's made to measure. What I also like about it is that it's quite a bit mellower than a lot of the stuff that the band play live so I feel it gives the live show more variation and a bit of "light and shade". To my untrained ear there is no guitar on this track with the synths just building and building to the songs climax. On the subject of guitars, Huw was playing on some of the earlier dates on the tour until ill health got the better of him, does anyone out there know if he contributed to this song on the dates he did play?, anyway Time captives makes way for more traditional fayre in the form of -
Master Of The Universe - I guess that it's just the way it was recorded but as the band start to play the familiar intro to one of the bands best known songs you can really feel them all gelling together as one but at the same time there's enough room in the mix so as you can make out what each member is doing and in turn giving you an insight into just how good Hawkwind can be on their day. Arthur handles most of the vocals, not sure about this part, his voice can come over a bit "Rock God" like and I don't think that it suits the song as much as when Dave sings it. Like on most of the album Tim Blake seems to be dropping spacey synth noises in all over the place, some sounding like bombs dropping whilst others are reminiscent of what I would imagine an alien spacecraft to sound like as it was lifting off, as Master comes to an end it goes straight into
Song Of the Gremlin - This was of course the song that Arthur sang on the original Capt. Lockheed album and shows off his vast range to it's best abilities, not really a lot to add and at the end of this number we're back into Arthur solo territory with
Time And Confusion - Basically a slow blues tune, nothing wrong with that in theory and actually not too much wrong with this performance, the question is does it fit into a Hawkwind set. I think it probably does, whilst we tend to term the band as primarily "space rock" over the years they've dabbled in punk, dance and reggae amongst others so why not the blues. On reflection I'd call it an interesting experiment that was in my opinion more successful than the forays into dance and reggae, but all that said, the song would fit much better into Deep Purples repertoire than it does Hawkwinds. Still with what follows I'll pretty much forgive them anything as it's time for -
Hurry On Sundown - Having been away from the Hawkwind fold for some 10 years this was the moment that I realised that I had made the right choice to re join. I've said this before but when will the band themselves realise just what a great song this is and not just in the space rock genre. It's a classic pop song pure and simple and one of the best, as much as I love the 1970 original I think the "electric" interpretation that they put on it these days enhances it even further. When the Britpop phenomenon was at it's height in the early to mid 90's any one of those who were "hip" at the time could have recorded it and almost certainly had a number 1 hit with it and I'm sure it would have remained a firm favourite on radio stations long after that particular fad had died away. So with the commercial pop song base covered we return to more traditional territory with Tim Blake's -
Lighthouse - It's at this point of writing this review that it suddenly occurs how many of the songs played this night weren't actually Hawkwind's! Take away Earth Calling which bookends the performance and can't really be considered a song in it's own right and you're left with 12 tracks of which 5, namely Aerospaceage Inferno, Time captives, The Gremlin Song (that's how it's described here!), Time And confusion and this track. I guess you can look at this 2 ways , it's either a case of " I feel a bit cheated here, I came to see Hawkwind and nearly half the set was other peoples material" or an if I'm honest the more reasonable view "More than ever these days Hawkwind is a collective rather than a band in the true sense of the word, so why shouldn't folks bring something to the party". As far as the song goes it's fine but for me a bit of an anti climax after Sundown, however normal service is soon resumed with -
The Watcher - Another highlight, both on the night and on this CD, after a couple of false starts from Alan the band launch into this Lemmy classic from 1972. Like Sundown they've given it a major overhaul and for me it's all the better for it. Whilst the original was little more than an acoustic piece tacked onto the end of an otherwise electric DoReMi the band have now taken it and padded it out in all the right places and in my opinion together with Hurry On Sundown would make for a dam fine double a-side single. Special note must be made of the instrumental break that comes in about 4 minutes 40 seconds in where Alan appears to take off into "Lemmy heaven", I know that Mr Davey gets criticised at times for being just a little bit too much like Mr Kilmister but when it sounds this good who's complaining? For the next track I'm afraid the word "obligatory" id the best way I can describe -
Assassins Of Allah - Now coming from the Quark album which if you look at my profile you'll see is my favourite then surely you'll be thinking that this puts it in good stead. well in one way yes, it's a great track, a classic even, but that said, when are they going to drop it from the set, it seem to have been in there forever, or at least 10 years plus, quick if somewhat bias suggestion, how about replacing it with Damnation Alley for a while. It's a perfectly fine performance of a perfectly fine song the only problem being it's been played to death, I'm sure I speak for many fans here when I say that we've become almost resigned to the fact that the band are going to play this one and for that reason alone it loses some of it's appeal. One of the good things with Hawkwind though is that you can always expect something a bit special just around the corner and once more they do not disappoint with -
Do That - Or should that read "You Shouldn't do That", either way it's a much shortened version of the opening track from 71's X-in Search Of Space and for me was another highlight of that particular gig. To me this is the prototype techno dance tune with it's repetitive riff that once it gets stuck in your head refuses to leave. Whilst the whole 16 minutes would have I'm sure tested a lot of peoples endurance, I for one would have quite happily had another 5 minutes of this, it sounds great here but on the night it was just mad. And there you have it the band return to Earth calling for a brief reprise and that's that another happy but exhausted set of punters!
Overall I really enjoyed this album. Personally I'm still not sure we need the vast number of live albums that come our way but that said if you do get a chance then pick up a copy. The latest news I have on it's future availability is that the original run of 500 have yet to sell out so will be available at future gigs. I also believe that it's the band's intention to make it available commercially at a later date, whether this will include the encores we'll have to wait and see.