Hawkwind + Arthur Brown

Manchester Academy. 28th of April, 2023.

Pictures by Mike Ainscoe taken from this article: https://atthebarrier.com/2023/04/30/hawkwind-w-arthur-brown-manchester-academy-live-review/

Until about a month or two ago, all I really knew about Hawkwind was that it was the band that Lemmy got kicked out of before starting Motorhead, and "Silver Machine" was the only song of theirs I'd heard. That was until we raided Owen's dad's vinyl collection when we went down to Wales a few weeks ago. One of the many vinyls we commandeered was a Hawkwind album from 1973 called Space Ritual. It's a live album. It looks like this:

Space Ritual album sleeve as it unfolds. On the other side of these panels, there's a bunch of cool and cryptic writing about ancient civilizations and lost gods.

Wild album design. It's a trippy and cryptic mish mash of spiritual insights and wisdom, referencing ancient gods and lost civilizations. It's miles away from the leather-clad biker aesthetic of Motorhead, and it's hard to imagine Lemmy playing bass in this spacey acid-metal band, but the world is full of surprises. So anyway, this album told us that we were in for some spacey and heavy music. As for Arthur Brown, all we knew was his 1968 song "Fire" which is a banger.

So on the 28th of April, we headed to Manchester to see these two artists we knew fairly little about, with open minds and hearts and ready to have a good time. Before the gig, we stopped at a rock bar which I've only just discovered the name of, since it's not obvious from the outside of the building: apparently it's called the Grand Central, and it's conveniently located just a few feet away from the Oxford Road train station. It's a great rock pub and a staple of our musical trips to Manchester. While we were there, we spotted a few people clearly heading to the same gig: old men with long white hair, beards, and psychedelic Hawkwind shirts and patch jackets. After finishing our pints, we made our way to the Academy ourselves.

Arthur Brown was already playing when we got there. Unfortunately, we later realised that he'd opened with Fire, so we missed the only song we knew. Nonetheless, the music we did hear was absolutely great, and the visual performance was equally impressive and funky. The guy sounded eerily like Bowie and gave one hell of a performance, especially for an octogenerian. Scattered aross the stage were these glowing mannequin torsos. Trippy spirals and splashes of color whirled around on a projector backdrop, and there were lots of lasers and lights. Mr. Brown had several outfit changes, many of which reminded me of Dr. John's outfits. He was wearing this top hat with steampunk goggles and a bird mask with feathers. At one point, he changed outfits and put on this cloak covered in multi-colored LED lights; the cape unfolded a bit like a bat's wing, so he could flap and hop around. All in all, it was a shockingly good performance, even as someone who knew none of the songs I saw him perform (and I believe many of them were recent songs!).

Next up was Hawkwind, the headliners. Once again, we were surprised by the quality of the performance, and again, they seemed to play a lot of their most recent songs, though we did recognize several from the old Space Ritual album we'd listened to. No "Silver Machine" though. I guess that's like their "Smoke on the Water"; they're probably sick of playing it. Though their outfits were markedly less funky than Arthur Brown's, the visual show was still really impressive, featuring some of the craziest lasers I've ever seen, along with some really cool background visuals. For one song, they featured clips from the excellent 1927 German film "Metropolis." Many of their songs were surprisingly electronic; combined with the lights and lasers, it sometimes felt like I was at a rave rather than a metal concert, but I still enjoyed it immensely. Their music is a great combination of psychedelic rock, heavy guitars, and electronic sounds, and even when I didn't recognize the songs they were playing, they're the kind of band where that doesn't matter. You just enjoy it regardless. And I absolutely did.

Hawkwind frontman Dave Brock. He is 81 years old!

It was interesting observing the crowd at the Academy; most of them were over the age of 60; lots of men and women with long white hair and old patch jackets. I overheard one woman next to me say something about how she'd just started taking magnesium, which perhaps gives you an idea of the average age of the crowd. Still, it was really wholesome to see so many people who were clearly huge fans of Hawkwind, and probably had been for decades. After seeing the band perform, I can see why. All in all, I'd say it was money very well spent. Hail Hawkwind.