Robert Calvert's Last Hawkwind Gig - 28th May, 1984, Ramsgate Marina Park

Dave Brock, Harvey Bainbridge, Huw Lloyd-Langton, Nik Turner, Clive Deamer, Dead Fred + special guest Robert Calvert for what would sadly be his last ever appearance with Hawkwind.
Setlist;
Coded Languages
Angels Of Death
Dragons And Fables
Watching The Grass Grow
Ghost Dance
Born To Go
Paranoia
Ten Seconds Of Forever
Waiting For Tomorrow
Utopia
Motorway City
Ejection
Uncle Sam's On Mars
Brainstorm
Sonic Attack
Dust Of Time
Brainstorm
Encore
The Right Stuff
Spirit Of The Age
Silver Machine
Here's a review of the gig that I got from here: aural-innovatio...
Hawkwind played an amazing one-off-gig at Ramsgate's Marina Park as special guest + top band at the end of a 3-day 'Battle Of The Bands' competition, with Nik Turner being the judge!
It was all relatively un-promoted, and Robert Calvert joined the band for this one gig on the Southcoast, one of the best gigs I've witnessed in the past few years. Taking the stage at about 10pm and playing 'til well after midnight. They opened with 'Coded Languages' & 'Angels of Death'.
Calvert was playing a small synth unit, dressed in black trenchcoat, red scarf and black beret, with Dave to the far right, thrashing out chords.
Harvey Bainbridge and Huw Lloyd Langton were far-left keeping things together with drummer Clive, and Dead Fred was adjacent to Bob, playing a larger keyboard. He also played violin.
Nik runs on, blasting sax through the monitors unaware that it's not coming out the P.A. Everyone carries on playing and as the number draws to a finish, Nik grabs a vocals mike and shoves the sax over it, straining a climax on a lengthy unheard solo.
Suddenly, all you heard was sax, and the raptuous applause from the thousand or so fans present. The full light show was very impressive, projected onto the band and cliffs above, and the whole gig seemed surreal and reminiscent of a Stonehenge gig.
'Dragons & Fables' & 'Watching The Grass Grow' followed, then the hypnotic 'Ghost Dance' The 'Countdown' cued Bob to take the lead vocals stagecentre for a fantastic Born To Go, and the 7-piece went mad. Bob chanted 'We were born to go' sixteen times, and the mantra must have hit him as much as it hit us.
Metamorphosing into 'Paranoia', Huw's lead slows down and Bob reads the Ten Seconds Of Forever, ever-slower, until the beat is so slow that even Bob seems to strain. lt was very effective and seemed to become the ten minutes of eternity - very weird.
Nik, then took the lead and welcomed us to 'Utopia'. He had a stunning fluorescant day-glo luminous sort of skin-tight psychedelic suit on which combined with the strobes/lights/liquid to give incredible visual hallucinations.
Nik took us to 'Motorway City', where Bob takes over and then explodes into space with Ejection'. Excellent vocals take the song to Mars, where the tempo slows a bit and Uncle Sam takes over. Calvert lets rip, gold megaphone in one hand and HW Iyric book in the other, whispering, speaking and singing the vocals like he always has, backed with conviction. Visually I was transfixed. lt was too much.
Nik takes the lead vocals for a medley of 'Brainstorm', Sonic Attack, 'The Island and the climax of 'Brainstorm'. Throughout, Bob echoed vocals and the band played flat out until gone midnight, when they left the stage. Everyone screamed for an encore.
A few minutes later, the band emerged to play an incredible encore of The Right Stuff (from Calvert's solo album Captain Lockheed...) Spirit of the Age & Silver Machine. Until the encore, I'd felt that Bob had been holding back. slightly, not too over-the-top, but now, he just let rip, screaming, 'I don't feel fear or panic, nothing brings me down...'
lt all sounded as good as on the album ten years previous, different but full of energy and emphasis. Bob needed the HW Lyric book for guidance through Spirit of the Age, which he spoke softly (at times) through the megaphone. Nik announces 'Master of the Universe, to then add, 'Er, we don't know 'Master' so we'll play Silver Machine instead. 'Oh no', thought I, but even this was really good, and a nice ending to a mindblowing gig! - © by Trevor Hughes