Hawkwind- Winter Solstice 2005
(Voiceprint HAWKVP44DVD)
From Aural Innovations May 2009 update
This was suppose to come out some time ago but it is out finally. It was recorded
at the Astoria in London, where Hawkwind for the past several years has been
putting on Christmas concerts. The venue has now been shut down. Anyway, this
is the four piece line up of Brock, Davey, Chadwick and Stuart. Sadly, Jason
Stuart passed away last year but you get to see him at this show. Alan Davey
has also left the band now as well. Jez is featured on a few tracks on flute
or saxophone and Mr. Dibs (now the bass player) does some spoken word pieces
like in the middle of Seven by Seven and sings Lord of Light. The sound mix
is much better than the disastrous Knights of Space DVD (avoid this one but
still not that great as instruments like the flute, keyboards/synths get totally
lost in the mix while the bass and guitar dominate. I don’t complain as
I like to hear Dave’s guitar! The camera is just one camera from the back
of the hall but it nicely shows the amazing light show and visuals. The show
is mostly 70’s material with 4 songs from the new studio album at that
time, Take Me To Your Leader. A very good document of the tour from 2005. Oh
yeah. There are no special audio mixes in 5.1 or anything, just standard stereo
audio.
Check out the band web site at: http://www.hawkwind.com
Check out the Voiceprint record label site at: http://www.voiceprint.co.uk
Reviewed by Scott Heller