Hawkwind - 1971-12-06 - Birmingham, UK (AUD/FLAC)

(Audience FLAC)

Hawkwind - Kinetic Playground, Birmingham. 6 December 1971

Source: CDR

Lineage:
Low gen tape transferred to CDR > Ripped with CDParanoia III > xACT > Flac

Taped by: Some guy with a tape recorder in the audience

01 Technicians Of Spaceship Earth
02 You Shouldn't Do That
03 The Awakening
04 You Know You're Only Dreaming
05 Spirit Of The Age
06 Master Of The Universe
07 Paranoia
08 Earth Calling
09 Silver Machine
10 Welcome
11 Born To Go
12 Jam

Concert Review:
Hawkwind’s gig at Birmingham’s Kinetic Play-ground appeared doomed right from the start! Nik Turner mislaid his alto sax and was forced to play all the alto parts on flute - which resulted in a distinct loss of fullness of sound. Then the roadie mislaid drummer Terry Ollis - but managed to pick up a last minute replacement in Pink Fairy / Pretty Thing - Twink. Fortunately Twink is a mate of Hawkwind from way back, and is conversant with most of the material. His major hang-ups occurred in “You Shouldn’t Do That” (which was taken much slower than usual) and “Born To Go” which disintegrated into a most enjoyable jam. To add to these
hang-ups the PA refused to function properly whilst guitarist Dave Brock spent as much time encouraging his equipment to work as he did playing through it.

In these circumstances it would be grossly unfair to be at all critical - especially as the band battled on for 75 minutes without making a big thing of thing of their problems. Many bands would just have given up. Apart from material from their current album - “In Search Of Space” - they played “Paranoia” from their first album and “Earth Calling,” “Silver Machine” and “Born To Go” next! Hawkwind’s entire act takes place in a doomy, gloomy, space -age atmosphere - shadow figures of the band lit up by flashing footlights - luminous symbols decorating drums and speaker cabinets - and a disturbingly hypnotic strobe directed at the audience. The music is heavy electronic, repetitive and compelling. The band’s claim that it is specifically aimed at dope freaks certainly seems to be valid - it rather flashes past we Tizer drinkers.