THE WEIRD TAPES VOL. 4 : LIVE '78

I was pleasantly surprised by this album. There have been so many Hawkwind albums that really exploit substandard recordings (like the dreadul Yuri Gagarin album) that I've been reluctant to buy these Weird tape albums because they're not cheap. However, having said that, this is a great example of how good Hawkwind could be live, right in the middle of the punk era. Calvert is on top form and the recording is really good. Live versions of Micro Man and Steppenwolf are nice to have. Uncle Sam's a great version too. This makes a great companion piece to the album "Hawklords Live" that came out on Dojo and Griffin (it doesn't seem to be listed here though so I can't review it! I can't give this four stars because I'd hardly call it an excellent addition to a Prog collection, whereas 3 stars implies it is non-essential. I would say that any Hawkwind fan would really like this album, hard-core prog fans beware. This is eccentric space-metal with a science fiction punk edge! let's call it 3 and a half stars...