21 August 2011 (gig)
05 September 2011
Hawkwind founder member Nik Turner played a one-off jamming session together with Godfrey Old on August 21st at Pentameters Theatre, to celebrate the work of poet, writer and fellow ex-Hawkwind member Robert Calvert.
Nik and Godfrey (who occasionally jams with former Fleetwood Mac guitarist Bob Weston) were joined by Gregg McKella (Paradise 9) on vox and Conrad Blakemore on everything else that sounded cosmic and psychedelic.
The multimedia event (co-organized by yours truly) started with selected poetry by Calvert, read by Pentameters artistic director Léonie Scott-Matthews. This was followed by a performance of the Calvert play ‘Mirror Mirror’ – a futuristic fantasy set in 2030 which was written in 1979 and inspired by his Calvert’s friend, Helen Mirren.
The play concerns Eleanor Bryant (Eva Gray), her psychechromic dress which responds to her feelings and moods, a multiperspectival mirror which reflects her image as others see her, and her encounter with a Mirror Technician from Reflexotronics (Mark Donahue).
After the play, Nik and fellow musicians took to the stage for a jamming session during which they played ‘Love In Space’, ‘Orgone Accumulator’ and of course ‘Silver Machine’ amongst other songs. With Nik on sax and Godfrey on bass (as well as weird-looking, silver-painted sound-boxes and tubes to blow into), the evening was much in the spirit of 70’s cosmic space rock. Sharing the stage with Nik and Co. were dancer Angel (who tours both with Nik Turner’s Space Ritual as well as The Arthur Brown Experience) and moi (during two songs).
It was a well-attended and well-received one-off event that not only drew in the theatre crowd but of course and above all, Hawkwind fans of all ages.
