HW: March 1978 HW gig review

[Bernhard Pospiech]

Hi folks

Found this gig review from Peter Holley

To be found on:

http://www.teche.net/personal/pholley/hawkwind.htm


It is written

in Belleville, IL on March 14, '78 - Calvert, Brock, Simon King, Adrian
Shaw. The show was at Ricco's Lounge, a small bar with a small stage . . .

Band members collected on stage tweaking guitar strings and twisting knobs
on mystical black boxes . . . as the excitement builds with a soaring
synthy sliding across the airwaves, beer
bottles banging with the gathering of fans calling for the last of the band
to come out; a "violin" begins to string a long-forgotten desert tune, and
Calvert eases in to view wearing a turban
and waving a sword as Hawkwind explodes headfirst into Hasan I Sabah. We
were dead and buried on the spot.

Brainstorm soon entered like a train without brakes, and we never were the
same. Can you believe they did Steppenwolf from Astounding Sounds? And in
the middle of this extended
version we found out its true, our lives were recorded on a microdot
elevating on that high-speed lift we call Hawkwind.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE HOTEL

Calvert made a brief appearance in the halls of the local HoJo before our
heading to Ricco’s that night. Lord, what do you say to Calvert? So, I
whipped out my copy of Captain Lockheed
and had him sign it. It reads, "Robot Calvert." PXR5 was not yet released,
friends, but as you probably noticed already – Robot and High Rise were two
of the tunes we heard that night!
We had a nice chat with Brock back at the hotel after the show, all the
while dreaming with the genie in the smoke. King was a bit busy and
appeared to be hustling skirt up and down the
hallway with little time to talk with us guys, whilst Calvert was up to
unknown preparations of his own after the show.

It was a brilliant adventure with three guys in a car, meeting a dozen
mates at the St. Louis train station, then hustling across the river to
Belleville. There is probably a distortion in detail –
after 20 years, what can I say but I’m subject to the mutation zone as
well. At the end of it all, the three of us got in the Bobcat about one or
two a.m. and headed back to Baton Rouge, LA.
I doubt the tires ever touched the ground. I also suspect Liquid Len and
the Lensmen had fiddled with my windscreen while we were at the show. Those
damned streetlights were looking
very funny for much of that ride home. Lee and Colby, where are you?

FOOTNOTE

Simon House was not on the road with Hawkwind at this time, having signed
up on tour with David Bowie. We had a chance to see Bowie not long after
the Hawks, with Rick and Lee
taking a bed sheet and painting HAWKWIND in giant red letters on it. These
guys went to the show and paraded around the mid-level walkway at LSU's
Assembly Center while the
show was going on. You should have seen Bowie looking  bummed and House
blushing and giving us a grin - 'cause you simply couldn't ignore it or
miss it. Naturally, most of the audience
had no clue, they came to see Bowie; but a few of us along with Simon
really knew the score :)-~