It was too long ago, and I remember not that much of the actual gig, for me to call this a Gig Review. It's more of a recollection, like Dave Dignum's Space Ritual Memories page elsewhere on this site....
This was part of a series of all-dayers that the Lyceum was hosting at the time. The usual format was 5 bands on a Sunday, and this was the case with Hawkwind. It wasn't part of a proper tour, more like one in a series of one-off gigs that they had been doing since Stonehenge that year (21/6/80)
The Lyceum had been a ballroom in its' time, and a theatre, but was in 1980 plying a trade as a pretty decent rock venue. Tucked away at the eastern end of The Strand, where it meets Aldwych, it's only a 15 minute stroll from Charing Cross train station. I took my then 15-year old sister with me for her one and only Hawkwind gig (so far).... We found the venue first and I asked one of the unshaven but tuxedo-clad bouncers if the doors would be open all night. "No," he said "it gets a bit parky about 2 o'clock in the morning". C***.
We went to eat at a Wimpy (McDonalds were few and far between in England in those days!) and then came back to the Lyceum. Inside, it was full up already; the first two bands on the bill had already played, and I don't remember who they were, but I suspect Magic Michael may have opened the show. The crowd was a sea of black leather and denim, and the atmosphere was heavy with patchouli oil and ganja smoke. Little Sis did not seem at all phased by this. It was one of the most homogenous Hawkwind crowds I can recall - heavy biker element. There was nowhere to sit, so we found somewhere to stand and wait to see what would happen.
The 3rd band on the bill were Out On Blue Six, a New Wave band starting to shade off into New Romantic territory, with dual vocalists (one male, one female) plus bass / drums / guitar / keyboard. The crowd did not take kindly to them, bawling "Haaaawkwiiind" all through their set and hurling beer cans at them. The biggest cheer of Out On Blue Six's set came when the male vocalist was hit on the head by a can. As he had a voluminous floppy fringe, or as close as you can get to floppy when your hair is actually frizzy, the can more or less bounced off. In retrospect it was rather surprising that Out On Blue Six didn't flounce off. Instead, they stuck it out and when announcing their last song, said "Don't worry, you'll get your Hawkwind". They then played an extempore number which featured the female vocalist delivering a high speed rant about "dirty smelly greasy apes". I rather admired their spirit.
There followed one of those interminable interludes between sets in which there was nothing much to do except drink and check out the crowd. One bloke near me looked familiar, wearing a black leather jacket with white lapels. When I looked again, it was Simon King, chatting to a member of the audience. His hair was shorter than I'd seen it before.... I was mulling over the idea of going over and saying hi to him when there was a muted roar and the entire crowd of some 2,000 people got to their feet and saluted someone or other. Craning my neck I realised Lemmy had come into the auditorium - Hail the Dark Lord! I had to explain to my younger sibling who Lemmy was.
Inner City Unit came on and ran through their set. This was the only time I have ever seen them and I wasn't that thrilled with them, though they played well. Looking at Steve Pond's site, I assume the band must have consisted of Nik Turner (yes, he was definitely there), Mick Stupp on drums, Dead Fred on bass, Trev Thoms on guitar, Steve Pond on synth. No idea about their set list. However they did play 'Route 66' with Lemmy guesting on guitar! He played quite a decent solo as I recall....
More waiting around and then Hawkwind came on. The band consisted of Dave Brock, Harvey Bainbridge on bass, Huw Lloyd-Langton, Tim Blake and Simon King. After all this time I don't remember what was in their set, except for "Who's Gonna Win The War" and "Motorway City". These were new numbers then, in fact I was probably hearing them for the first time ever. A search of the archives of the BOC-L/Hawkwind email list confirms the setlist as:
intro / shot down in the night / motorway city / urban guerilla / prelude / who's gonna win the war / world of tiers / dust of time / space chase / brainstorm
In other words, the new "Levitation" material with a couple of numbers from the 1979 set that was captured on the Live 79 album. So most of this would have been new to me - Live 79 had not yet been released and Levitation had yet to be recorded. The 2 tracks I do remember by name were the highlights of the show, both struck me as excellent new numbers. "Who's gonna Win The War" was extremely topical as there was a great deal of tension between the USA and the USSR at the time, with the Americans having launched an abortive raid into Iran and the Russians having invaded Afghanistan just the year before...
The sound quality wasn't quite up to scratch, and the band played at less than their best - it came across as sounding like a warm-up gig. During one of the numbers, Motorway City, I think, a motorised robot came out on stage and rolled around on wheels. No-one realised it at the time, of course (and I've only just twigged 22 years later) that this was Simon King's last gig with Hawkwind, and that Tim Blake had not too many more to go....
My impressions of the gig were that I was underwhelmed. I had previously seen Hawkwind at the Southampton Gaumont on the UK 1979 Winter Tour (26/11/79),which was a storming performance - this one wasn't as good. However, my sister was suitably impressed and it converted her to the band, who she still likes even if she's not managed to see them since. And I was back for the Autumn 1980 tour, so it can't have been too bad! I've often wondered what happened to Out On Blue Six, though...
Thanks to Denis Regenbrecht for the information on his site www.d-rider.de, which enabled me to confirm the band's line-up and to Bernhard Pospiech for the setlist. Proof of the vaunted German efficiency, I'd say :-)
PostScript - Bill Barwick adds this recollection:
Just read your review of the Lyceum gig 20/7/80. Laughed at the mention of Out On Blue Six. My recollection of the end of their set is a little different. Like you said they weren't going down at all well, but I remember the girl singer saying something along the lines of "Alright, you all know this one". Many of us
It was apparent at the end of the encore that all was not right with Simon, he didn't look happy to me and it wasn't any surprise when I found out later that he'd gone. Bad news, best drummer HW ever had in my opinion, shame he's given it all up.
I'm positive that the Hawkwind Lyceum all dayer was in August 1980. Late June '80, saw Nik Turner, Dave Brock et al playing Stonehenge as "Hawklords" (I think). I was there for 3 weeks - cold, hungry, broke & trying to avoid being beat up by biker gangs - who took a dislike to Crass playing a set.
The running order for the all dayer was:
-Magic Michael : can't really remember anything from his set
-The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (Latterly the money-burning dance superstars KLF)
-Out On Blue Six : I remember the canning off incident. When the band walked off the (woman) singer made a reference to "love & peace hippies". If memory serves me right, the DJ made some reference along the lines of "well that's enough of that rubbish, here's a song you all know, it's the Byrds". This got a passing mention in the followings weeks NME as "Space Cadets bottle off Out On Blue Six at Lyceum all dayer - shows what sort of people go to Hawkwind gigs". I think the Lyceum used to attract a pretty nasty audience - I saw 'Dead Fingers Talk' bottled off stage a couple of years before. (Mind you, that were nowt compared to when David Sylvian's Japan opened the set for Blue Oyster Cult at Newcastle City Hall in 1977...)
-Inner City Unit : opened the set with (I think) "Watching the Grass Grow" a happy bouncy little number all about the aftermath of global nuclear war. Hence all the barbed wire & stuff on stage - Judge Trev wore a (plastic) dead rat as an earring. Very fetching! Steve Pond's ICU website (http://www.doremi.co.uk/icu/calvert.html) used to have some photo's of the gig. He currently has a Calvert bootleg (Carlise) on MP3. Excellent quality recording & great versions of Quark, Damnation Alley & Days of the Underground. I (& about three other people) saw Rob Calvert play in Newcastle the day before. Judging by the clapping it sounds like a similar number turned up in Carlise as well - shame really. Lemmy was there. If memory serves me right, he was pretty well out of it & a roadie had to give him a hand strapping a guitar on. He played rhythm guitar on "Route 66", though I can't remember any guitar solo, though do remember him flicking lighted cigarettes into the audience.
-Hawkwind : this definitely enters the "top 10 worst bands I ever saw" list - boring, bland, no emotion at all. A disappointing end to an otherwise excellent day...
Martin Treanor was there, too...
I was at the Lyceum gig myself and although it seems a lifetime ago, I can confirm that Hawkwind or rather Tim Blake gave a rather compelling rendition of Lighthouse with many of the crowd heard to say "It's his band now". Inner City Unit included a storming rendition of Glen Miller's "In The Mood". My only other recollection is receiving an apology from Lemmy who stood on my foot - not that I was going to argue as he's f*****g huge!. I enjoyed this gig though it was only a short while later that I saw them at Chelmsford and was put off seeing them for a further five years - no Tim Blake, no lightshow and an execrable Ginger Baker drum solo in the middle of "Brainstorm" Yuck!
John Effay remembers it like this:
I was at the Lyceum gig as well, and just wanted to add a couple of things.
Firstly, Mark Newbury is wrong about the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu playing. [As I have been also] It was, as your scan of the poster makes clear, The Androids of Mu: An all female punk band formed by a couple of the backing singers from the Here & Now. They played feminist/sci fi rants such as '(I don't want to be a) Boring Housewife'. I thought they were great, but I was possibly the only person there who did.
Out on Blue Six were awful, but nowhere near as bad as Magic Michael, whose guitarist was guesting from The Lightning Raiders (I have no idea who they were, but this was announced as though it was incredibly significant). I missed the canning incident as I was upstairs in the bar buying Lemmy a drink, along with just about everybody else who had spotted him. No wonder he was wasted by the time he got on stage!
It was the first time I saw Inner City Unit and I thought they were excellent. There was barbed wire all over the stage and they were all done up in combat gear and bloody bandages, with the exception of Trev Thoms who was only wearing swimming trunks and had writing all over his skin wrongly identifying the various parts of his body. They played really well, but most of the audience only became interested when Lemmy got on stage with them. I remember Nik explaining that 'Solitary Ashtray' was about Astrid Proll from The Red Army Faction (German terrorists), which impressed me at the time.
After ICU, Hawkind were fairly disappointing, with the exception of the ever excellent Tim Blake's bit. The set was very similar to the one they had toured in 1979 but felt more lacklustre, although that might just have been because I was overly familiar with it. Also, I never liked Huw Lloyd-Langton's meanderings on guitar, so I may have been slightly biased. I do remember getting into a shouting match afterwards when I said that I thought ICU had blown them off the stage...
I have heard that he is now working as a bus conductor in Dave Museum's manor of Westcliff On Sea (Essex) Here's hoping for an exclusive interview to appear in the Hawkwind Museum!
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