HW: Norwich Waterfront 9/11/99

[Alasdair Macdonald]

Those who don't want to see tonight's HW setlist, skip this
message..........




Harvey was support; played for about 35 mins, the kind of sounds you
probably would have expected, with a bass guitarist for all but the
first 5 mins. The balding biker-guy who's encored with HW occasionally
over the past few years, possibly.

Harvey played a nice version of Free Fall. Didn't look especially
comfortable onstage - not sure how often he plays concerts these days.
With long (now grey) hair he looks like the old man of the mountains,
but with a tie-die instead of uh whatever. Enjoyable start, anyway.

Hawkwind:

Quite relaxed, easy-going and loose. Lots of smiles on stage, maybe
the most relaxed I've seen them. Since Nik was advertised on the
poster outside, someone shouted "Where's Nik?" to which Dave replied
with the obligatory "gone to bed". Much as I like Nik, I'm kinda
relieved he wasn't there to mess things up. Simon House was onstage
throughout, as was Harvey, though Simon was inaudible for the first
1/2 hour (I never could hear him until "Utopia"), and I had trouble
picking out Harvey's sound.

Dave seemed to enjoy playing with Harvey again, Not too many songs
were played hard or loud, and several jams developed - even dropping
down to very very quiet sections.

Setlist:
Aerospaceage Inferno
Ron poem (said he got the idea from National Geographic - cue smart
remark from Dave).
Motorway City (with the emphasis on the "t" ie Mo*t*orway City instead
of "Modorway Siday".
Assault & Battery->
Golden Void->
mellow Golden Void jam
New Ron tune, sang "Goodbye" a few times.
Utopia (the song, not the poem)

(40 mins and I suggest tape flip here)

Assassins Of Allah (no Palestine)
new tune/mellow spacey jam, almost Allman Brothers Band in parts. Ron
singing stuff like "Generation, Procreation", other words ending in
"ation"
High Rise
Blue Skin
Brainstorm (with mellow intro ha ha)

(pretty much exactly 80 mins)
-----
Use a second tape for the encore:
Warriors At The Edge Of Time
The Right Stuff->
Death To.... (is this Song of The Gremlin???)
Dave conferred with Richard, looked like Dave's idea to play...
Spirit Of The Age (kinda different to expected)
looked like they were gonna leave the stage except maybe Jerry didn't
want to so he started into...
Master Of The Universe.
------------

That's it. Jerry seemed quite unenthusiastic all night, frankly I
never even noticed him. Spirit Of The Age was so unexpected (I think
tonight was my 49th HW gig and this tune has tended to elude me), and
such a different version that I was quite euphoric for all of Spirit
and the subsequent MOTU. Up until then, I thought in anunremarkable
gig. My 2 buddies thought it was shite. I think it was the
relaxedness, and the willingness to explorer a few things differently,
especially the quiet jams which I enjoyed (and the same thing they
disliked).

Oh yeah, one of the "new songs" was Hippie but I wasn't paying so much
attention when I made the song list just now, and there was a Paranoia
ending to a tune in there as well.

If all goes well, Milton Keynes tomorrow should make it 50...

Alasdair

--
Alasdair Macdonald

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alimac at netcomuk.co.uk (Alasdair Macdonald)