Short Reviews [Hawkwind - 2021 - "Solstice At Stonehenge 1984"]

Hawkwind were seen as stalwarts of the free festival scene for years before playing at Stonehenge in 1984. Given they were not playing for paying punters they allowed themselves to experiment and play what they wanted, and at the last ever free festival they played from 10 to midnight, and then came back for dawn to play some more. The line-up at the time was Dave Brock, Harvey Bainbridge, Huw Lloyd Langton (who played the evening session, but not the following morning), Nik Turner, Alan Davey and Danny Thompson, and they played old and new Hawkwind songs, along with numbers from Inner City Unit and Bob Calvert's 'Lucky Leif And The Starfighters' album. This was originally released as a movie and that has been made available on DVD as part of this triple disc set. The sound is not brilliant, and I have not seen the movie so cannot vouch for its quality, and it comes across as a good quality audience bootleg, but in terms of musical quality this is an absolute blast. It is interesting to note there is no “Silver Machine”, but this was during a period when Brock had really gone off playing it (remember that on ‘Live 79’ it was cut off as a “requiem”), but we do get the likes of “Motorway City”, “Brainstorm”, “Masters of the Universe”, “Sonic Attack” and “Born To Go” and the result is something which any aging Hawkfan such as myself will find much to enjoy. This album has been issued and reissued a few times over the years, but Black Widow have released this as a very special set with 2LP + 2CD + DVD + 32-page book + 2 posters so is well worth seeking out for by the serious fan.