HW: Support bands #1 - a general approach

[Doug Pearson]

On Tue, 7 Nov 2000 16:15:57 -0800, "John H. McCartney" <scorch at TE-CATS.COM>
wrote:
>> P.S. The worst band I ever saw supporting Hawkwind were a local bad
>> lite-metal band called PSI who played at the Omni in Oakland ...
>
>Uh, which one were they? As I recall, there were 3(?) openers that night,
>and each and every one of them sucked like a black hole.

They were the third of three.  Fortunately I missed the first two openers
'cause I'd just gotten back from a weekend ski trip.

>I stayed in the
>bar until the last one finished (chatting with Harvey, Alan, & Richard),
>then claimed my spot right up front and dead center. Ahh Bridget.....

... yeah, I'm a fan, too!  In that case, we couldn't have been standing
more than 5 or 10 feet apart.  I was probably a bit to your right ...

>The support at the Stone on the previous tour also blew dead goats. I
>remember they were trying really hard to be Cream, and they were so bad
>that when they were at the bar during Hawkwind's setup, everyone left
>a clear space around them.....

Was that King of Kings?  I remember them being fairly unremarkable, but
pretty inoffensive ("trying really hard to be Cream" sounds about right).
Not nearly as bad as PSI, and I think Kevin Sommers (thanks again for the
CD-R's!!) mentioned liking 'em.  The other two Bay Area shows from those
two tours had better support.  I forget the name of (sometime boc-l
member/lurker) Jeff "Stretch" Ridel's band (and I think I forgot how to
spell his name - sorry, Jeff!), but they had a female singer and did a
decent version of "Steppenwolf" at One Step Beyond in the South Bay.  And
the night after the Omni show, the San Francisco show at the I-Beam had the
Bedbugs, who I thoroughly enjoyed (wierd semi-acoustic hippie noise improv,
emphasis on the "wierd" and "noise").

As for the 1995 support band in San Francisco (at Slim's), I'll keep my
mouth shut ...

        -Doug
         ceres at sirius.com