Gig Report: Space Ritual at Wickerman

[M Holmes]

Arthur had played "Fire" twice and done an excellent "Time Captives" in
a fairly middling set. He really needs a stronger backing band to make
his music come alive. Then it was off to see the Wickerman (or woman?)
put to the fire. The ceremony was rather long and drawn out before they
finally put it to the torch, but it was spectacular in the end.

Back to the Main stage about 12.30am where Nik was being introduced. The
lineup was Nik, Terry Ollis, Mick Slattery, Thom Crimble, Dave Anderson,
and Sam Ollis on keyboards.

They kicked off with a fairly standard version of "Ghost Dance" followed
by "Welcome to the Future" in which Sam did well with the spacey noises.
"The Right Stuff" came next and to be honest seemed like a Hawkwind
track played slowly and with all the blanga taken out.  Nik extended
this one by a long sax insert and then repeating the "I'm the Right
Stuff baby..." line while Sam and Thom played some sort of Jazz/Ska
baseline which sounded very weird to me in this song.

Then into "Born To Go" which at east did aspire to the possibilities of
that track and it was the best of the night. Then came a song I didn't
recognise but which was surprisingly melodic until Nik started his sax
honking all over the top of it.

"Orgone Acumulator" was next and again played slowly and very jazzified.
By that time I'd been able to figure out that Terry was playing drums in
the Hawkwind style, and Mick Slattery was doing pretty well as a kind of
bluesy Langton type lead. Nik's sax wasn't any different to what it's
ever been. By elimination the jazz/ska effect is coming from Crimble,
Anderson and Sam Ollis.

Sonic Savages followed and I'm not familiar enough with the track to
comment, then Brainstorm, which again was too slow and jazzy. A poetry
track next which I didn't recognise (a chorus line was "Our Saucers are
waiting...").

By this time I'd decided that the thing to do was to just ignore the
fact that these were Hawkwind songs and just accept the gig as a
jass/ska show. It's not a style I like a great deal, but Nik is quite
the showman and it was at least a lively gig, with folks down the front
having fun. They ran through Watching the Grass Grow/ Master of the
Universe/ Children of the Sun and You Shouldn't Do That. CoTS sounded
much like the Xin track and YSDT occasionally sounded like there was
some blanga in it. They cut the power except to Nik's mic around 2.30am
and Nik went on through In the Mood/Pink Panther/ Tequila on the sax
before wandering down to shake hands with the front row.

All in all I had a pretty good time once I'd given up on hearing
anything like Hawkwind.  The sound quality was good.  The only major
downer was the two completely trashed prats who kept "befriending" on me
just because I wore a Viking helmet with flashing horns. One of them
then flew at this guy in a wheelchair, knocking him out of it and
continuing to fight with him on the ground. That's what I call fucked up
in a major way.

I would very much recommend the Wickerman Festival.  It's beautiful
Borders countryside.  The camping is near the parking field and there's
loads of room to camp compared to the big festivals.  Plus there's only
one farmhouse even visible, so they could just keep playing music.  A
very nice laidback weekend, and some pyromania thrown in. Maybe we can
get the real Hawkwind next year...

FoFP