It was my older brother Ken who took me to my first gig, we were a large family and we use to share a room, so I would go through his record collection whilst he was out. He had been to number of gigs and before we went he suggested I keep a gig diary because he wished he had, as even then he couldn’t remember all the bands he had seen, especially the support acts. So I did this for about 9 years and still have it to this day, which is really helpful when writing this blog.
The first gig I went to was on 25th January 1975 with Hawkwind plus support from Swan Revival and Al Matthews at Bracknell Sports Centre, tickets cost £1.00 (yes a pound, I haven’t missed a zero). It still amazes me to this day, that my brother and his friends were happy for me to tag along. I was a geeky, skinny just turned 15 year old, where as my brother and his friends were the epitome of mid 1970’s cool, with their long hair, denim jackets and flared trousers, my Mum wanted to make sure I was smartly dressed with an ironed shirt, smart trousers and my Parker jacket which were all the rage at the time. I can only imagine I stood out like a sore thumb amongst all the Hippies.
Bracknell Sports Centre was THE local venue for touring bands with a capacity of several hundred and ironically only a mile or so from where I currently live 50 years later, although no longer putting on music events. Hawkwind were one of the most prolific live music bands in the 70’s performing at most festivals and venues. The album they were promoting at that time was Warrior On The Edge of Time which featured Lemmy and two songs that were to become synonymous with Motorhead, which is the song of the same name and Kings of Speed. My memory of the gig itself was the smell of Patchouli oil, hundreds of hippies, the light show by Liquid Len and the lensmen and I remember the cover of Warrior On The Edge of Time being projected on the big screen, and sax player Nik Turner walking past us as the band left the stage wearing a frog mask!
I still have the programme from that concert which includes a short story by author Michael Moorcock whose band The Deep Fix who were due to be the support band but were replaced by Swan Revival. I did an internet search but can’t find out anything by them, although my memory is that they were Glam Rock. The first act on was Al Matthews who recorded one album and is best known as an actor who played Gunnery sergeant Apone in the Alien films amongst others, sadly he passed away in 2018.
Although I didn’t get to see Michael Moorcock perform until a few years later I became a fan of his writing and have over 60 of his books. His most famous characters include the Science Fantasy novels featuring Elric of Melniboné and the Jerry Cornelius novels who was like a 60’s psychedelic James Bond if memory serves me right. He also wrote a trilogy of Fantasy novels where Hawkwind were the heroes fighting corporate businessmen who were known as the straights who fired music guns with songs by Elton John etc at the Hippies and Hawkwind fought back with band members performing live constantly whilst others flew around in their Silver Machines.
I did get to see Hawkwind a few times after that at the Fulcrum, Slough on 15th June 1977 with Motorhead (much more about them in a later blog) who were the support band, tickets were £2.00. The Hawklords at Uxbridge University on 24th November 1978 with Softies as support, tickets were £1.70. Then again as Hawkwind at the Top Rank, Reading on 27th October 1980 with Vardis as support, tickets were £2.75. At the Glastonbury Festival on 20th June 1981 where they headlined the Saturday night on the Pyramid Stage and the Hexagon Reading on 28th September with Ginger Baker on drums, which I always thought was a strange combination, Mama’s Boys were the support, tickets were £3.50
Over 50 years later and Hawkwind are still going strong with 38 albums released to date.
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