LEGENDARY BAND ‘HAWKWIND’ RETURN TO HALL FOR CORNWALL

Hall for Cornwall are delighted to welcome back the legendary psychedelic spacerock band Hawkwind, making their first appearance in our building since the days of Truro City Hall. Visitors to our Greenroom café will have seen the inclusion of their 1973 visit in our wall-mounted timeline, but their debut in Truro was as far back as 1970, only a year after they emerged out of the Ladbroke Grove counterculture scene!

Misty-eyed enthusiasts still talk warmly of their various Cornish concerts across the years, most notably in 1971 at Redruth’s Flamingo Club – or Morrisons as it is now! – where they were joined for the very first time by the statuesque dancer Stacia. That 1973 show recorded on our timeline would have seen a certain bass player by the name of Lemmy in their line-up. Lemmy sang vocals on their Top 3 hit ‘Silver Machine’ the previous year, and a couple of years later formed his own band, named after a song he’d written for Hawkwind: ‘Motörhead’.

A picture sleeve of Hawkwind's best known single

At the St Austell Coliseum in 1980, for their Levitation tour, the band included Ginger Baker, famous for drumming in the British rock trio Cream, while a couple of years later at the same venue they played a benefit gig that, in part, helped fund a CT scanner for Treliske Hospital.

Hawkwind at St Austell Coliseum with Ginger Baker on Drums. Credit: Oz Hardwick

They returned to Truro City Hall in 1993 as a tight and loud three-piece, with local band Lordryk in support. Seasoned Cornish gig-goers will remember that Lordryk were also known under the name Moondragon, and later morphed into local favourites 3 Daft Monkeys, whose Anthene Roberts makes an appearance on the very latest Hawkwind live album!

Other Cornish Hawkwind gigs still talked of fondly include a private party in Carleen on the day of the solar eclipse of 1999, a headline appearance at a psychedelic all-dayer in Penzance in 1988, and at the notorious Treworgey Tree Fayre festival of 1989. Then there was a nostalgic remount of their Warrior on the Edge of Time album at Falmouth Pavilions. Older fans reminisce about their 1971 gig at Marazion, overlooking St Michael’s Mount. Or was it on St Michael’s Mount, overlooking Marazion? Nobody can quite agree it seems!

We’re thrilled to have the ever-present Dave Brock and the current Hawkwind line-up visit Hall for Cornwall, especially as they continue their tradition of having local bands open for them with the wonderful Celtic cacophony of Hanterhir appearing this time!

Spacerockers, this is the show for you!

Written by Ian Abrahams

Author of Hawkwind: Sonic Assassins