The band we went to see on Saturday night was Hawkwind. I joked that I was there as Paul’s support act. He’s a long time fan of Hawkwind and was pretty excited to be seeing them again – I think the last time he did was in ’86. I’m more in that ‘don’t love but don’t dislike’ category.

Knowing what concerts can be like (standing in a crowded space for hours) I swapped my usual big, heavy-ish handbag for a small one I call my my gig bag because it’s just large enough for a cd, sharpie for autographs and cash for drinks and snacks. I also packed pain killers, tissues and eye wash, because the reason I’ve only gone to one or two band gigs for every decade of my life is I am very allergic to smoke. At the last moment I slipped in my sketchbook and a pen.

It proved to be a good decision. It kept me occupied while we waited in the queue:

And when the support band, Night Terrors, was on the lights were still bright enough that I could sketch the band. I started from the right, but ran out of room for the fourth band member:

But since he was the most visually magnetic of the group – very tall, lanky, alternating from stunningly skilled feramin playing to wild, rocking guitar – I did a lone portrait of him:

Afterwards I saw he was working the merchandise counter and waited until there was nobody in his queue to ducked over and got him to sign it. He asked me to send him copies, so I emailed the above pics. (Hmm, not that I think of it, I should have signed them, but I don’t usually bother signing my sketchbook pages.)

Hawkwind were very entertaining and Paul had a really good night. But I liked the support band more, and from the comments I overheard the mostly 40+ crowd were pretty impressed, too. And I didn’t need any of the allergy supplies, thanks to non-smoking rules. I had known that laws were coming in but hadn’t yet shaken my long-time habit of avoiding public venues. Hmm, maybe I’ll go see more live music now.