HW : Hawkfest2003

[gingoblin at EASYNET.CO.UK]

**Sorry to anyone that gets this twice... forgot the HW prefix in subject
line when I posted yesterday**

A big thanks to all involved... what a great weekend. Arthur Brown was
excellent on the Friday, and Hawkwind reached numerous moments of utter
brilliance on the saturday! It's just never enough! Highlights were The
Right Stuff... it just shot up in the stratosphere after the fairly ambient
Chronoglide Skyway (which I don't remember even recognising! Hmm), Where
Are They Now... a true joy to hear... and of course Assault &
Battery/Golden Void. Great lightshow too...    Perhaps I would prefer less
"guests"... it's HW I really wanna see.   And gotta say, FreeFall in
Harvey's set was very entertaining in a "they're all really really lost"
kinda way! We'll just say it was avante-garde eh?!

Really cool atmosphere (everything else was HOT!)... lovely food -
carnivores, it's only three days! Do you object to eating vegetables or
something?!! ;-)  Personally I'm GLAD the handful of complaints last year
didn't result in the sickly smell of cooking flesh wafting over the site.
The six of us that came down from Scotland all agreed on this point... so
please give the veggies a break... you meat-eaters get it your way the rest
of the time! :-) Solar Powered veggie cafe yes please! Stinking burger
vans... no thanks!  Ice slush drinks on boiling hot days is something I
hope we can all agree on though!!

Pity about the no fires, no barbecues, no candles thing... fires I can
understand, disposable bbq's leaving loads of burnt bits on the grass I can
pretty much understand, but candles?  Still, I s'pose that's the price that
has be paid for having facilities like showers etc. Being able to cook
would be very handy though (all my horrible, disgusting vegetables had to
come home with me).
And indeed the Big Bulb did infringe somewhat on the star-gazing
activity... I'll start sticking together red sweety wrappers for next year
too I think. Either that or start work now on the Big Lampshade. For the
night-vision "impaired" no doubt it was a godsend though.

All in all, a really excellent time was had... I get to go to these type of
things so rarely now with most of the free festies up here disappearing
years ago. It did indeed recreate the atmosphere of festivals of old (as
the aim was stated on the website)... a definite success. Here's to next
year! Guaranteed we'll all be back! (cue collective groan from those camped
near us that had to listen to the incessant pish we talked! Sorry!).

So thanks to the Hawks, everyone involved with the running of it, and
everyone that turned up and had a great time. Roll on 2004...

Dave

PS. I'd like to say extra special thanks on behalf of my friend Mikie to
WILLIAM FYFE who was good enough to hand in the cash he'd left behind after
having a shower. What a guy! If you read this William (or if anyone knows
him) please get in touch.