A Tale of Two Programmes

One interesting thing about the recent Spring Tour was that it was the first in years to feature an official programme. This featured graphics and photography by John Chase, Melvyn Vincent and Alisia Clark and a Hawkfest 2002 / 2003 photo montage centre spread by Rik Richardson, the Mission Control webmaster.

Coincidentally, the same day that this arrived in the post, I also received a copy of ‘Ship of Dreams’, which was the official programme for Hawkwind’s 1997 UK tour…it’s actually issue number 28 of Hawkfrendz, the fanzine put together by Trevor Hughes, and therefore a much less commercial proposition than the 2004 ‘Spirit Of The Age’ tour programme, not that this is in any way a bad thing.

Starting with the 1997 programme, which is titled ‘Ship of Dreams’, it’s a fairly typical of the general run of Hawkfrendz publications (not that I have more than a casual acquaintance with them), being published in black-and-white, with a two-colour glossy cover. Trev’s thing seems to be to pull together material from a variety of sources and package it in his distinctive style, which is reminiscent of pulp SF comics, with plenty of humorous illustrations of bug-eyed aliens and the like. The front and back cover harks back to the graphics of Frendz and International Times, the underground press of the early 70’s, with a few references to subsequent Hawkwind album artwork, like the Choose Your Masques figure and Xenon Codex motif on the back. There is also a can of soup (?) floating in space, emblazoned with the eight arrows of Chaos! Andy Warhol, eat your heart out.

Open up the front cover, and you see a Table of Contents and numbered pages, which all looks very organized. The first bit of written content you come to is the Hawkwind Personnel text from the old (pre-Rik!) Mission Control site, introducing, inter alia,.Ensign Richards and Lieutenant Tree. After a couple of reproductions of Space Daze 97 flyers

(“America’s 1st Space Rock Festival”) we come to the first of a number of well written reviews by Marie Jenkinson, who is nowadays half of Chaos Illumination. She writes entertainingly about Hawkwind’s appearance at the 1996 Langtree Festival in Devon, and it’s interesting to read her comments on the lightshow of the day - which was run by one Pogle if I remember correctly.

The programme goes on to detail some recent Hawkwind and related CD releases and devotes a page of graphics to Captain Rizz, who might have been support on the 1997 tour, across from a page touting Bedouin, which includes a brief review of a live festival performance of theirs and the text “Alan Davey has left the Mothership…” It’s nice to see the extended family getting a mention in this way, and there’s a half page ad for Danny Thompson’s ‘Skinwalker’ solo album a little further along as well.

The centre-spread is a very nicely executed illustrated layout of the lyrics to Love In Space, which I’ve seen eslewhere, though this was no doubt the original source. The programme’s acknowledgements credit Mich Mortimer for this and I’d say he’s much better at this sort of thing than previous efforts had been – here I’m thinking of the Hawkwind Lyric Book of the early 80’s, which was illustrated by Jon Coulthard. (Jon’s work definitely improved out of sight over time and I believe he now finds his early Hawkwind-related efforts something of an embarrassment.) Sticking with the acknowledgments for a moment, a number of different artists are named, and their contributions identified – Mr.Hughes himself did a couple of collages of pre-existing material, confirming his role as editor/publisher.

Next, another gig review by Marie was something I read with great interest, as it’s of a gig I attended, at Blackheath Concert Halls on June 7th 1997. It reveals some things I had forgotten, such as the fact that Captain Rizz and his band had opened the show, and is an intriguing read being penned by someone who had been following Hawkwind without a break through the 1990’s, which was not the case with me. I didn’t know at the time, and had not fully realised since, that this particular gig was pretty much Hawkwind’s relaunching of themselves after the departure of Alan Davey.

Following a reproduction of the Wiltshire Constabulary’s “Notice Regarding Stonehenge” and the 1997 exclusion zone around it, there is the last of Marie’s reviews, but this time of a CD rather than a gig – she writes a couple of pages about the EBS Sampler and the live ‘Love In Space’ double CD, which she memorably describes as “the Space Ritual of the Nineties”…they do seem to pull out one major theatrical show every decade, with Chronicle Of The Black Sword of course being the 1980’s version. Well spotted Marie, and if what we hear about the Autumn 2004 dates comes to pass, it may be that this will be the year for the Hawkwind extravaganza of the opening decade of the 21st Century. (Has anyone figured out what this decade is called? The zeroes? The two thousands?)

A few oddities round out the programme, with a list of contact addresses (for Hawkfrendz, EBS, Hawkfan etc.), an excerpt from a Dave Brock interview, a press clipping and a rare 1970’s press photo being interspersed with acknowedgements, thanks, more pulp illustrations and an ad for a Judge Trev CD. I was quite impressed with this programme – it was obviously produced on a budget (and sold for the low, low price of Ł1) but contains a lot of variety with some solid good quality content. Just the thing to leaf through while you’re waiting for the band to come on.

The 2004 ‘Spirit Of The Age’ Spring Tour programme is a very different kettle of fish, being a full colour glossy production, reminiscent of the programmes of the late 70’s and 80’s, except that this one, like 1997’s Ship Of Dreams, is in B5 format (8.27” x 5.79”). The cover you see on the right – inside, there’s a list of acknowledgements of tour personnel, and a “Message From Kris” (Tait) which makes encouraging mention of the hope of making Hawkfests annual events, and extends the thanks to those who help keep the spaceship flying...

All these pages feature text overlying assorted photos of the band and stage show, none of which I’ve seen before. Following Kris’s comments, there is a greeting from Dave Brock, which is accompanied by a photo from a 1999 session – one of which had been used in Mojo’s extensive feature of the band in September of that year. In fact each band member gets their own page, and Richard Chadwick’s follows this format – but Alan Davey’s is slightly different, featuring a handwritten list of ten “thoughts from beyond the head”. Preceding this is a page devoted to Angela Android, with the lyrics (oh dear) overlaying a specially created graphic. I am glad now that these lyrics have been inaudible when I’ve heard this played live.

As mentioned, the centre spread of the programme features a montage of photos from the two Hawkfests, and these are a selection of the pics that can be seen on Mission Control, the band’s official website (for which there’s a full page ad in the programme). Ian and Stuart Mackie probably take pride of place for fan pics from the 2002 Hawkfest, and the fairy with the wings for 2003 (though the “online crew” appear there too, yours truly among them). As it said in the Message From Kris, these photos will bring back memories for those who were there and make envious those who weren’t.

It’s good too, to see an update on merchandise – what was being sold on the tour is also available by mail order, and consists of the Spaced Out In London live CD, and a new Spirit Of the Age 2004 Tour t-shirt. Plus I think they might actually have some copies of the programme still available: it went for Ł4 on the night, but you should check price and availability. I’ve reproduced the Merchandise page here: the money goes straight to the band and it’s the most direct way that you can support them.

More photos follow, then some illustrated lyric pages – Reality of Poverty (much better lyrics than Angela Android!) and Spirit of the Age being the featured numbers: the latter because it’ll be the next single, and the inside back cover carries some publicity for it, featuring Dave Brock with Matthew Wright who sings on it. There’s also some advance publicity for the new album on the back cover, showing the cover and a tracklist. Finally there’s a list of 2004 tour dates (extending beyond the Spring tour to take in some summer festivals in Europe and projected UK dates in December) and the ever-present Hawkwind Passport application form. I’m sure they would accept a photocopy of this to save you having to cut up the programme :-)

There’s not as much written content in this programme as there was in the 1997 effort but it makes up for that with the professional quality production and wealth of unseen photographs. I hope they still have copies available to buy because for anyone who didn’t get to the Spring 2004 tour, and thus had no chance to buy one, it’s a nice piece of memorabilia. Many thanks to Rob Dreamworker for picking up a copy for me and sending it along!