Space Ritual's last show at Borderline London

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Tue, 2 Dec 2014, SHLL (Scott Heller) wrote:
> Met up with Jon from the list (not planned) for Space Rituals last show 
> with 4 of the members from 1970 Hawkwind. Nik, terry, Thomas and Mick 
> plus a new bass player and then Chris (I think) on synths sounds.. IT 
> was a hell of a fun party but not the best set I have seen them play as 
> Mick was not up to snuff.. not as bad as Huw became for a few years but 
> he just could not remember the songs but the rest of the band was a 
> great and the terry and the new bass player really kicked ass... Thomas 
> Crimbles new band, Inevitable, were a sort of Neil Young, country blues 
> rock thing and some of it was good and some of it as pretty boring. A 
> fun night none the less and Nik was in great spirit and played well 
> also..

 	Dear all,
 		  a solid `amen' to what Scott says here, and a few other 
bits and pieces... Chris on synths was Chris Parlowe (I think) who has 
been behind the various Calvert revival stuff, the plays and the reprint 
of his books. The new bassist was also playing with Inevitable, his name 
was Gary and he *likes his funk*; the first few SR numbers sounded quite 
different from usual (and kind of similar) but he wore into the blanga 
thing in time for `Brainstorm' and `Master of the Universe' (which were 
the last two numbers).

 	Terry Ollis took a while to warm up but once he started putting 
fills in it was like fifteen years fell off him and he spent the whole gig 
thereafter regaining form, marvellous to watch. Sam Ollis his son was also 
playing on some numbers, hidden at stage left with his back to everyone 
else, on percussion and DJing as Nik introduced him but I saw no sign of 
the DJing. It was weird to watch how he and his dad shared almost the same 
sense of where the fills and emphasis should go but never actually clocked 
in with each other; they made an excellent but seemingly subconscious 
pair.

 	Angel was dancing, and was pushing the line between dancer and 
stripper a lot harder than she usually does but was still fantastic, and 
took a stage dive at one point which confused and either delighted or 
horrified quite a lot of the audience I think! Nik was also on excellent 
form, by which I mainly mean loud and cheerful--he counted the band back 
in twice without actually being on the beat himself, but we kind of expect 
this :-) He was making a big deal out of the billing of this as the final 
public performance of the band, ginning up a lot of audience agitation for 
them to continue on, and demanding that if that's we wanted we make a 
noise on the Internet about it by way of support (so here I am doing...). 
I wonder now if this was connected with the disappearance of the second 
band who were supposed to be playing, his Project 9, from the billing. 
Has his alternative vehicle caught a flat? (Not that being flat ever 
bothered Nik...) Anyway, though I'm still not clear that Thomas Crimble is 
an asset, this was a band that would be worth seeing again and so I kind 
of hope we do. Yours all,
 			  Jon

P. S. Good to see you and yours, Scott!
-- 
   Jonathan Jarrett       "There is scarce any tradition or popular error
Medievalist historian    but stands also delivered by some good author."
      Birmingham         (Sir Thomas Browne, "Pseudodoxia Epidemica", 1646)