Setlist: We Are One, Gravity Well, Speed Of Sound, Devil In Your Head, Astral, Robot, The Joker, The Silence Of Space, Brainstorm, Dark Space, Gravity Zero, Obscura, One Way Trip, SR-71 Encore: The Right Stuff
Since the last tine around the band are now a trio of Jerry Richards (vocals, guitar), Mr. Dibs (vocals, bass) and Dave Pearce (drums). It’s a tight powerful line-up too as exemplified on the excellent Space album which they were promoting on this tour. Dibs handled the requisite synths and audio effects which cropped up throughout the set. He never seemed to look flustered either as he seemingly effortlessly moved from synths to bass! It was nice to see him so cheerful too after his issues with Hawkwind..
What the band have now is a solid set of albums to pick from for the set, and we got a carefully selected selection including fan favourites such as the choppy but melodic We Are One, the pulsing chug of SR-71 and the driving One Way Trip. The breakdown section in the latter was just immense with Dibs and Dave locked into a groove while Jerry’s guitar just soared off into the rafters.
Jerry’s lead guitar playing was exquisite, but he’s also a really good singer and a very charismatic figure on stage. It’s hard to take your eyes off him! This was especially so with his delivery of two poems from the Space album in the form of The Silence Of Space and Obscura. Jerry was just riveting performing these, and I am sure Robert Calvert would have approved.
The band originally started as a former members of Hawkwind conglomerate, utilising the Hawklords name which Hawkwind had adopted for a year. The late Calvert was a key member of both and he is something of a totemic inspirational figure in the Hawklords world. Given their roots, the band have always featured a smattering of Hawkwind/ Robert Calvert songs. So we got rip-roaring versions of Brainstorm and Robot, plus an encore of Calvert’s solo barn-stormer The Right Stuff.
But there’s no taking away from the strength of their own material and there will be more to come. The core of the band for some time has been Jerry and Dave. Whoever else comes and goes The Hawklords will continue to produce interesting absorbing material.
They remain a great live band, at a great ticket price, in the kind of venues that are a pleasure to go to and deserve our support. Long live The Hawklords!
