In Search Of New Space

After the success of their Space Ritual tour, Hawkwind were keen to explore new possibilities for their music.

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The result was the eclectic but much-loved Hall Of The Mountain Grill, now released as a nine-disc box set including three live shows from 1974. Prog looks back on the making of a classic.

At the start of 1974, Hawkwind were still very much a band on the up. They'd just completed their first North American tour, with thousands of stateside fans attending every show, and on returning home had immediately embarked on The Ridiculous Roadshow, playing to sold-out concert halls around the UK. Dave Brock told the NME it was so named "because all our tours are just so silly and disorganised", but they'd become a serious force to be reckoned with in the British rock world since the success of Silver Machine in 1972.

They were also a band in search of a new direction. The US shows marked the retirement of the Space Ritual set they'd been playing for over a year, and they wanted to move away from the science-fiction image they'd acquired, particularly as space age poet Robert Calvert had temporarily left the band. Speaking to Record Mirror, drummer Simon King said.

The first sign of this looser, less 'heavy' approach to their material had come out the previous August. Urban Guerilla had Calvert raving about making bombs in his cellar, and ended up being withdrawn after a series of IRA attacks, but musically it was upbeat and catchy, even a little rootsy. Yet it was the single's B-side Brainbox Pollution that really rang the changes, with a central riff that was pure old-school rock'n'roll. Used as The Ridiculous Roadshow's opener, it set the tone for the rest of the set, with other new songs including You'd Better Believe It and It's So Easy.