This was a memorable gig for so many reasons, and it's taken a few days for it all to sink in. Firstly the context. I haven’t seen Nick Turner with a Hawkwind line-up since about 1973, maybe even 71 - Derby Assembly Hall - and the thing I remember then was the disintegrating drum kit.
30 odd years later Nick has obviously taken out insurance in the shape of two drummers. Original Hawkwind drummer Terry Ollis and son Sam took their place as part of a weird and wonderful bunch of musicians, dancers, performance artists and spontaneous guests. For Space Ritual.net take the whole concept of a show right back to the early Mothers of Invention idea of a "happening".
And boy did they happen!! For over two and a half hours, we were treated to a mixture of the weird, wonderful, compelling and even musically inspiring.
Turner blew his rasping sax, while guitarist Thomas Crimble noodled uncertainly on the edge of going out of tune. Original band member Mick Slattery added some telling licks, and Del Dettmar was...well just himself, a real "presence" amongst a cast of thousands. Dave Anderson added rock solid bass in conjunction with the two drummers, enabling the ship to keep steady, even in the most chaotic moments. In short, this "original" Hawkwind experience was really the missing link between 70's psychedelic rock and today’s Trance scene.
The audience was almost as colourful as the band, as people did their thing on the dance floor. The full Glastonbury light show was magnificent, and the new Stacia, aka Debs was great. As was Jackie Windmill on a huge hand drum, complete with a shock of red hair.
We were treated to "Master of the Universe", "Shouldn’t Do That", "Orgone Accumulator", "Brainstorm"; "Sonic Attack", and of course a rejigged third encore of "Silver Machine". This was a stunning spectacle, and a memorable evening put together by people who preceded the Glastonbury generation by about two decades. Their time has come again!!
Pete Feenstra - Soundcheck Magazine