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Customer Reviews of Classic Rock Legends: Hawkwind

Hawkwind-'Classic Rock Legends'DVD/running time:52 minutes
A live gig that probably took place sometime in 1990.Just nine Hawkwind tunes,mostly older material(thank goodness for that)making this DVD a decent choice.Line-up here is:Brock,Alan Davey,Harvey Bainbridge,violinist Simon House,drummer Richard Chadwick and short time vocalist Bridget Wishart.Sound&picture quality is fine and even totally dug most of the songs,like "Lives Of Great Men","Void Of Golden Light","Utopia",the Bob Calvert gem "Ejection" and "Damnation Alley".Only dowside here is that Wishart showcases clearly as to how she simply does NOT belong in this band,while fronting the tunes "Out Of The Shadows" and "Back In The Box".Sorry,there I said it.However,the other band member's performance don't seem to be affected by Wishart's lame-ass onstage existence.She's much better on the audience source 'Live At Glastonbury 1990' CD(see my review of that disc).

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Cool band, pointless sideshows
I confess I didn't know much about Hawkwind when I saw this DVD, but they are at the least interesting, and at the best inspired. I do have a quibble or two though. I have to agree with another reviewer that "the truly abysmal 'guest' vocalist (Wishart)" utterly sabatoges the music when she is onstage. Her voice is flat and she sings (if you could call it that) as if she has a tin ear. Ugh. Then there is the "interpretive dance" of the flat-footed, arhythmic "ballerina" who not only upstages the band but who actually seems not to be familiar with the music. Yeech. And one final production quibble: it certainly doesn't do much for the viewer's eyesight or the clarity of the picture to have a blinding yellow strobe behind the band facing the camera.

Finally, while Classic Rock Legends is to be commended for releasing this and other concert DVDs, the lack of liner notes is a deplorable oversight. There is no mention of band members, let alone a summary of the band's history to that point. You'd think with a release such as this that it would be the band that would be celebrated, not the production company.

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Excellent Show From a Band You've Probably Never Heard of
Excellent Live Show from a band most people have probably never heard of. Hawkwind has actually been in continuous operation since 1969 with Guitarist/Vocalist Dave Brock the one constant through countless personnel changes. Hawkwind never made much of an effort to crack the U.S. Market (Most of their albums were never even released in the U.S.) but the band is fairly well known in Europe. This version of Hawkwind (Dave Brock - Vocals/Guitar, Alan Davey - Vocals/Bass, Harvey Bainbridge - Keyboards/Vocals, Simon House - Violin, & Richard Chadwick - Drums) is made up of excellent musicians who can just flat out play. The bands sound is hard to categorize but it is somewhat like progressive hard rock . Kind of like Yes meets Guns n Roses with an Electric Violin thrown in. This concert rocks from beginning to end and the bands use of flashing lights, video backdrops, fog, strobes, guest dancers and fire eaters (You read correctly) adds to the visual presentation. The video quality is excellent and the sound is very good although the overall level is somewhat low (You have to turn up the volume on your TV or Sound System although the sound is clear with no hum). The only reason I gave this 4 stars is that the concert is under 52 minutes in length and there are no extras on the DVD. I would recommend this though for fans wanting to hear excellent music performed by first rate musicians. Songs: Lives of Great Men, Golden Void (Void of Golden Light), Out of The Shadows, Night of The Hawks, Back in The Box, Utopia, Ejection, Damnation Alley.