Gran Torino (2008) [re Up]

In 2008, the idea of a rock band doing their proverbial thing in Egypt holds far less cache than it did 30 years prior. However, it was unquestionably a novel notion when the Grateful Dead sought to begin diplomatic talks between the U.S. Government and Egyptian officials to allow for the band to bring their "long, strange trip" to Cairo's Gizah Sound & Light Theater in mid-September of 1978. Considering the precarious political state of the world at the time, it is a minor miracle that these shows came off at all. Rocking the Cradle: Egypt 1978 (2008) gathers two-and-a-half hours of highlights from the September 15 and 16, 1978 performances – with the vast majority coming from the latter date. While they played on the 13th (as a sort of sound check) and the 14th as well, there is no music from either date located here…

Curated by the band’s current label, Cherry Red Records, this three disc box set was released in 2008 to herald a complete overhaul of the band’s catalogue from 1976 to 1997. Cherry Red acquired the rights to these albums, and rolled out a reissue programme that saw each album get a dramatic upgrade in sound quality, accompanied by bonus discs of previously unreleased songs or live takes. However, while Hawkwind’s legacy is impressive, it’s fair to say that not every album is a winner, and certainly in the later years the albums suffered from a lot of filler, and leader Dave Brock tended to recycle and re-record older tracks and simply badge them with new titles. This set manages to filter out a lot of the weaker material, and concentrates on the tracks that define Hawkwind at their best…