Hawkwind - Night Of The Hawks DVD

Night of the Hawks sees the mid-1980s incarnation of Hawkwind being really rather excellent at the Gaumont Theatre, Ipswich. The line-up here includes several of the 'Wind's elder statesmen, including Lloyd-Langton and (of course) Dave Brock, but this was also the period that saw the band being fronted by Nik Turner, dressed like a cross between a circus acrobat and a Mad Max villain. Fully outed as both a performance artist and a free jazz saxophonist, he totally steals the show, although his post-punk vocal take on "Silver Machine" demonstrates that it was indeed... only Lemmy who had the right vocal range for Hawkwind's solitary hit single. That being said, there's plenty of good stuff here, such as "Ghost Dance", the bleak "Uncle Sam's On Mars" and a suitably intense version of "Sonic Attack". On the DVD: given the notorious, you-had-to-be-there murkiness of the numerous VHS releases of Hawkwind gigs, there's surely never been a band more deserving of the detail-friendly DVD format, which not only does visual justice to the snappy editing but also ensures that the glorious lighting is, at long last, part of the viewing entertainment rather than a distraction--even the darkness seems to glow. The picture is in 4:3 ratio and the disc has an assortment of fairly uninspiring extras (mainly web links and catalogues). In suitably spaced-out fashion, the entire package manages to omit personnel listings altogether, but who cares? --Roger Thomas [show more]

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