Treworgey Tree Fayre DVD review

Treworgey Tree Fayre DVD review

Many thanks to regular contributor Graham P for this review!

Finally watched (and thoroughly enjoyed) the Treworgey Tree Fayre DVD.

This features Dave, Alan, Harvey, Simon and Richard all looking impossibly young, as you’d expect from a video shot 20 years ago, playing under canvas on a small and poorly lit stage, with a primitive light show and some dry ice. The picture is fuzzy and the sound fuzzier, with only Simon’s violin emerging with any clarity from the murk. In several places there are clear audio glitches.

Man of the match, unquestionably, is Simon House – his violin playing is central to the sound pretty much throughout and contributes to some (almost) classic versions of some old favourites. On the down side, Dave directs the band through various medleys of bits of songs – and lets Alan take too many lead vocals. On balance a worthwhile, and enjoyable, addition to the canon.

After an iffy start, with some rather perfunctory playing and singing, the final section of “Brainstorm” kicks the set into life. “Down Through The Night” though is no more than a brief and spacey excerpt, the sound dominated by Simon’s violin and Alan’s bass. “Treadmill” is given more or less a full outing, spiced up visually by some fire juggling/fire-breathing and enhanced by Simon’s splendid lead violin playing. It segues into a truncated “Time We Left”.

Simon’s violin yet again makes the difference on “Hassan-i-Sahba”, just about making up for Alan’s vocal deficiencies. He is also prominent on a very good “Assault and Battery”, sung by Dave. Unfortunately Alan sings the first verse of “Golden Void” (with Harvey on backing vocals), rather spoiling the effect. It’s not that he’s a poor singer, it’s just that the band already has one very good lead vocalist and Golden Void is Dave’s song. Anyway, Dave joins in on the second verse, and a fire juggler is on stage for the entirely excellent extended instrumental coda.

Bridget appears to sing on a decent version of “Back in the Box” and this is followed by a lively “Arrival in Utopia”, sung by Dave and with an extended (and not a little tedious) instrumental / fire juggling sequence before the band segue into a brief and intense “Paranoia” (uncredited) and a slow and relaxed excerpt of “You Know You’re Only Dreaming” sung by Alan. Without a pause, the band then move seamlessly into “Damnation Alley”, yet again sung by Alan.

Jerry Richards joins in for a punky “Needle Gun”, sung by Dave. This is followed by “Ejection”, sung by Alan, and a rather fine instrumental closer in “Lost Chronicles”, with Simon’s violin filling the spaces left by Huw’s absence.

The package contains 2 DVDs, “with” and “without” added visuals. The one I watched, labelled “with added visuals” looked pretty much untampered with except towards the end, where a few visual effects had clearly been added. Of course though, this is a Voiceprint release so it turns out that the version “without added visuals” is actually the one WITH added visuals, which appear (on a very rapid skim through disc 2) to consist mainly of splashes and swirls of colour all over the place. I wouldn’t say they detract from the experience but they don’t add much either and are no substitute for a proper lightshow.

-Graham P

Here is the blurb from http://www.hawkwinddirect.com which is the Voiceprint website set up to sell their recently issued DVD’s and CD’s:

Hawkwind / Treworegy 29th July 1989 - DVD / Ł14.99

Treworgy Tree Fayre

This show was filmed at the Treworgy Tree Fayre in July 1989 and the band line up at the time included Dave Brock, Simon House, Richard Chadwick, Harvey Bainbridge and Alan Davey. Special guests include Bridget Wishart and Steve Barnard. The band performs key tracks such as Hassan I Sabha, Damnation Alley and Brainstorm.

Track Listing:

1. Intro Jam
2. Brainstorm
3. Down Through The Night
4. Treadmill
5. Time We Left This World Today
6. Hasan I Sabha
7. Assault and Battery
8. The Golden Void
9. Back in the Box
10. Arrival in Utopia
11. You Know You're Only Dreaming
12. Damnation Alley
13. Needle Gun
14. Ejection
15. Lost Chronicles

Apart from the obvious misspellings of song names in the preceding blurb, special guest “Steve Barnard” actually refers to Steve Bemand (who had played with Richard Chadwick in 80’s festival band Smart Pils). However, the back cover of the DVD credits Jerry Richards instead. In fact Steve Bemand did guest with Hawkwind at the Treworgey Tree Fayre, but not on the performance captured on this video. As Graham rightly points out in his review, it’s Jerry Richards who appears on the DVD. The explanation, as documented on the Gig & Set Lists 1989 page is that Hawkwind played two sets at this Festival. The one that was filmed took place on the Wango Riley stage in the evening of 29th July 1989, with Jerry Richards guesting. They played a second set in the early hours of 30th July, on the Traveller’s field stage, with Steve Bemand on lead guitar.

Thanks to Mark Coggins, Steve PXR5, Rob Dreamworker and Steve Bemand himself for the clarification!