Hawkwind - At The BBC: 1972

Space cadets’ glory days

There’s a really great box set begging for collecting Hawkwind’s BBC recordings, from early radio sessions to later highlights such as their 1986 Reading Festival headline. This release, sadly, eschews that idea, favouring a snapshot of the year of Silver Machine and Space Ritual, featuring a previously unreleased Johnnie Walker session and two versions of their September 1972 Paris Theatre In Concert performance.

The session cuts are two grainy classics: the cyberpunk Brainstorm and a close-to-thesingle rendition of their Silver Machine albatross, complete with Lemmy’s lead growls. “The interesting and unusual sounds of Hawkwind,” Walker notes in faint-sounding praise. The real meat of the two discs, however, is the Paris Theatre show, widely pirated and fetching significant collectors’ cash for its previous official appearance via Windsong.

Refusing to pander to running-time requirements, legend says the band demanded to play as long as they wanted… and then brought their performance in “to the minute”. Windsong released the mono mix, on Disc One here, the bootleggers the slightly longer and much sharper stereo transcription that comprises the second CD. Popular perception has the latter version as the superior, but there’s no doubt that this mesmerising show demonstrates just how influential Hawkwind’s proto-punk acid trip has been.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

EMI | tbc

Reviewed by Ian Abrahams
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