Track Listing

1. Shot Down in the Night
2. Motorway City
3. Spirit of the Age
4. Brainstorm
5. Lighthouse
6. Master of the Universe
7. Silver Machine (Requiem)
8. Urban Guerrilla [*]
9. Shot Down in the Night [Single Edit][*]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6325 in Music
• Released on: 2009-03-30
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: CD
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

Customer Reviews

A contender for Hawkwind's best "live" CD
I've always been extremely fond of Hawkwind's "Live 79" since buying it on vinyl on its original release: it's my favourite Hawkwind live album, preferring it to the much vaunted "Space Ritual Live". I've wanted to buy it on CD for some time but had missed previous opportunities, so was pleased when Esoteric Recordings, through their Atomhenge project, began to reissue many old Hawkwind releases, including this particular prize.

Overall, it has not disappointed. I had hoped that more bonus tracks would have been included, in particular as there is material out there (on emusic for instance), that suggests that many more tracks were recorded during that tour. To be fair to Esoteric, the quality of recording of the additional material on the emusic material is very poor, and I guess that, try as they might (and I now that, based on past track record, they will have tried pretty hard) they could not get the quality up to CD-release material. Shame, but it's better to have the original thing as it was released than nothing at all. In fact, the recording of "Urban Guerilla" is as good as the original track listing but, perhaps because it was only the one, they decided not to mess about with the original running order. (The second bonus track is just a single edit for "Shot Down in the Night", one for the collectors!).

The sound quality of the original album tracks themselves is good, perhaps not as crystal clean as I'd expected from my memory of the album (but I am getting older!), but certainly more than good enough for a CD and better than other Hawkwind live recordings.

The Hawkwind line-up for this tour produced a really punchy, crisp, exciting sound that still sounds superb today: the perennial Dave Brock, Simon King on drums, Harvey Bainbridge on bass, Huw Lloyd-Langton on guitar and Tim Blake on synths.

The album is short, true, but all the more tight and exciting for that, although I never really came to terms with the "crash" that curtails "Silver Machine". The music leading up to that makes up for it though. The album gets off to a superb start with "Shot Down in the Night", full of power and menace, moving on to a pacey "Motorway City" and a brilliant version of "Spirit of the Age", which ended the original side 1 of the LP. Side 2 was just as good, with the spacey "Lighthouse" sandwiched by a couple of absolute Hawkwind masterpieces, "Brainstorm" and "Masters of the Universe", both performed brilliantly! Phew! No wonder they crashed the Silver Machine after that!

It was a great album when it came out that did much to re-ignite the Hawkwind name and it still sounds great today! If you're a fan and do not have this on CD,. then just get it now before it sells out!

A great live album, but would you buy it?
As far as I can determine there are four types of fan that might buy this updated recording of Live '79

1) Completists - you don't need to read any more as you've already bought it

2) Owners of the 2 CD version which apart from having a rare PXR5 outing has one of the worst sound recordings of any live material (ok Yuri Gagarin excepted). This includes me and I am very happy I now have a decent copy

3) Owners of a previous single-CD version. Unlike the Atomhenge studio re-issues you get very little here in the way of new material (one track). I would think long and hard

4) Fans who don't know this album - I would say by it, it is from one of many pivotal points in the band's career, line-up changes, Simon House gone to Bowie, keyboard changes, no new album, but Huw back with the band and Tim Blake bringing Lighthouse to the fold.

Like all Atomhenge products this has an excellent set of sleeve notes on the booklet, the sound is ok and is well priced.

Hope this helps!

the voyage continues
This is a magnificent live album which stands alone ,separate from space ritual and is a worthy release,anyone expecting space ritual part 2 clearly hasnt being paying attention - that band was over as had been shown by the 4 discs which preceded this one,this like a previous reviewer has noted is a rockier dare i say heavier hawkwind,possibly tagging onto the nwobhm which was about to explode across the uk and that was fine by me,hawkwind yet again stunning the critics and bouncing back,From the opening salvo of shot down in the night/motorway city this disc cant fail,the guitar playing different class,spirit of the age carries us towards brainstorm/masters of the universe with the atmospheric lighthouse inbetween,certainly the rifferama on the aforementiond brainstorm/masters is awesome and would have given a few metal bands a run for their money,failure to award 5 stars rests solely on the fact this im still irritated by silver machine requiem a pointless exercise,in terms of bonus tracks they are nothing to shout about and i had hoped that some quality extras would have been found,still cant have everything,buy and enjoy another trip thru space with hawkwind.