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Hawkwind - The Friday Rock Show Sessions Live at Reading '86 CD (album) cover

THE FRIDAY ROCK SHOW SESSIONS LIVE AT READING '86

Hawkwind

 

Psychedelic/Space Rock

2.99 | 26 ratings

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GruvanDahlman
Prog Reviewer
4 stars By 1986 Hawkwind had released a tremendous body of work that ranged from the early spacerock chaos and madness through to the early 80's excursions into electronic music, succesfully fusing their own particular brand of hard rocking space music with extensive use of keyboards and electronic sounds. It's quite a magnificent journey, really. Hawkwind might seem as the salt of the Earth but they are truly larger than life and absorbed every part of the majesty of pomp into their repertoire. Drawing alot of inspiration from author Michael Moorcock and staging the epic live concerts around "The chronicle of the black sword" they carved out a space of their own. Quite brilliant and breathtaking.

1986 saw them gaining a spot at the Reading Festival and, man, did they put on a show. It's true that the repertoire is played in a severely loud hardrock fashion, a bit different than usual. But then again, they always maintained the hard edges in both studio and live settings, so I wouldn't mind too much about the alledged "heavy metal" branding the album sometimes seems to be associated with. What you get is high energy Hawkwind playing stuff going back to "Warrior on the edge of time" and all the way up to their, by then, current album "Chronicle of the black sword". The energy level of the performance does not eradicate the subtleties that in effect are the soul of Hawkwind. Au contraire. There are enough of the wonderful, spacey keyboards to go around and in "Dream worker", which is my personal favorite on the album, the spacey effects makes me shiver and wish I'd been there. Yes, Lemmy does appear on "Silver machine" and while that is a treat in itself and the result is a fun and loving rendition of the track it's the rest of the album that really kicks up a storm.

There's so much ambiance and enthusiasm on this recording that I find it hard to not put this live album in my personal top10. I know it's kind of difficult to track down these days but if you do get the chance I'd advise you to get hold of a copy. I had the unexpected fortune to land my very own copy at a flea market for a measly £1. That is a bargain, I know.

Simply put, a great live album and a great example of a band blowing it all off the stage. Great album.

GruvanDahlman | 4/5 |

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