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November 23rd, 2008
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Blasting off in Ostrava

Hawkwind adds sci-fi theatrics to an outstanding festival lineup
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By Darrell Jónsson
For The Prague Post
July 9th, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Brock and his band have been staging trips to outer space for four decades.
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Colours of Ostrava


When: June 10-13
Where: Various venues in Ostrava
Tickets: 390-890 Kč per day; four-day pass 1,090 Kč in advance, 1,200 Kč at the site; available through Ticketpro and Ticketportal
For more information and a complete schedule, check www.colours.cz

The Czech rust-belt city of Ostrava may seem an odd setting for a rock music festival of international scope. But Colours of Ostrava is running strong in its seventh year, with a diverse lineup that includes headliners like Sinéad O’Connor, Happy Mondays, Hawkwind and the Dandy Warhols. Norwegian ECM recording artist Jan Garbarek tops the list of jazz artists who will be making their way to Ostrava this weekend.
There’s also a great sampling of Czech talent, with jazz stars George Mraz and Emil Viklický collaborating with Moravian diva Iva Bittová, and a roster of innovative regional rock bands that includes BBP, Fru Fru and Please the Trees.
Few of the bands will be more experienced or in their element than Friday night’s headliner, Hawkwind. From the band’s late ’60s origins as Group X and across four decades of touring and countless recordings, Hawkwind is a contender for one of the planet’s consummate rock festival acts. Speaking on the phone from his home in Devonshire, England, Hawkwind founder/guitarist David Brock recalls his band’s festival roots with a hearty laugh. “When we first started out, we were playing outside the festivals,” he says. “We used to have a generator on the back of a flatbed lorry. It was a bit noisy and the power used to go up and down, so when you were playing your guitar, it would sometimes go out of tune.”
But Hawkwind’s passion for playing any side of the festival fence gradually carried the band to center stage. “We got quite a big following, because we were an anti-establishment band and we used to do free festivals all the time,” Brock says. “We were doing the Stonehenge festival right up until 1985, when it was stopped by the police. And we were very active with the free festival movement in England that went on to become the raves and techno in the ’80s.”
Hawkwind was one of those rare bands, like the Who, T. Rex and the Deviants, that stayed popular despite its ’60s origins. “The music we were playing was very upfront, with lyrics about science fiction and changing laws and all these sorts of things,” Brock says. “As well, it was both hippies and punks that used to go to these festivals, and there was no antagonism. So we were very tapped into the culture of change.”
Hawkwind’s most solid creds have always been in outer space. From 1971’s In Search of Space to 2005’s Take Me to Your Leader, well-spun tales of other worlds have been a staple on Hawkwind albums. Asked how the band entered the realm of science-fiction, Brock replies, “I think we drifted in with Bob Calvert, who was a great science-fiction poet and started working with us, and then went on to sing for us. We all used to read a lot of science-fiction, then we met up with [novelist and Nebula award-winner] Michael Moorcock. We liked his sort of sword-and-sorcery stories, and ended up doing the whole of the Elric books.”
A mixture of ritual, theater, uncompromising rock and outré stage action — including topless dancing — made Hawkwind’s shows the stuff of rock festival legend. And the band hasn’t lost a step in that department. “We had live mime artists working with us in the ’70s who would mime live stories to the words,” Brock says. “These days our live dancers do things like walking on stilts so they look like giants. And because they are wearing white, our light show projects onto them. If you can imagine them standing up with their arms up, they are like two giant screens. It’s kind of like taking people on a trip.”
What can fans expect in Ostrava? “We are going to start off with a bit of space-age warrior going off into space, then coming back to earth and finding an orgone accumulator,” Brock says. It would spoil the act to give away more, but Brock did allude to songs about cryogenic freezing and time travel. Further propelling their cosmic rock ’n’ roll will be former Gong member and longtime Hawkwind associate Tim Blake. “He’s bringing his old EMF synth and theremin,” Brock says. “Tim’s secret is that he would like to be the lead guitarist of the group,” he adds with a laugh. “But hopefully we should be able to do duets together, and that’s what we’re working on.”
If your tastes are more down-to-earth, there should be plenty to satisfy in Ostrava, with three main stages and numerous fringe events this year. Adding some spice to the ambience will be the Louisiana-Texas gospel choir Craig Adams & the Higher Dimension of Praise, and for fans of European folklore there will be the Corsican choral group A Filetta. Rock out to your favorites, and take the opportunity to sample something new, whether it’s from Corsica, Louisiana or outer space.

Darrell Jónsson can be reached at features@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (9/07/2008):

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