HW: Live 79 (An invitation to a 1 minute hate)

[Andy Gilham]

> Why do people love Live 79 so much?

Not entirely sure.  In context, its origins were a time after the Hawklords
broke up, and after the Charisma contract had been fulfilled with _PXR5_,
when Dave had phoned up some mates and started a new Hawkwind.  Who were
without a contract.  But they still managed to put on a big UK tour with
lasers and stuff, and Dave recorded some of the shows, and after the tour,
"hawked" the tapes round a few record companies.  Meanwhile, Doug (who was
also managing Motorhead  and Girlschool) signed them all up to Bronze as a
package deal, and in due course, _Live 1979_ in the form we know it came
out.

My main disappointment at the time was that there was so little new material
on it, as they'd premiered "Levitation", "The War" and probably some other
stuff too, on that tour, and instead we got yet another "Brainstorm" and
"Master".  (Can't remember, did they also do "Psi-Power" on that tour?  I
know they did it a lot in the next few years.)  The "Context" argument also
makes a lot of sense, in that the "Spirit" played on that tour just sort of
struck me as "wrong".

Anyway, it was always (to me) a sort of "marking time" album, not a "real"
album, more of an official bootleg, I guess.  And they were obviously saving
most of the new material for _Levitation_.  My favourite track is the track
not actually on the album, but on the b-side of the single, "Urban
Guerrilla" (and now on about fifty compilation albums).

And of course I've got one of the rare versions, with the wrong address for
Brian Tawn on it :)

- Andy

mailto:Andy.Gilham at btinternet.com; http://www.btinternet.com/~andy.gilham