By carefully selecting the artists I pay to see, I am rarely disappointed, To-night was a major investment paying £30 to make the journey to Newcastle and sit in an overheated uncomfortable hall with poor acoustics and if you sit close to one side you can hear traffic in the quiet moments. The Civic Hall in Newcastle is best experienced listening to singers or groups with loud bands where you can stand up to avoid cramp or antagonising neighbours in the rest of the row because you want to tap feet and generally get with it. There is an upper tier called the balcony with about 300-400 seats facing the stage and 200 at each side. Here you sit facing the other side and have to hold your body and head angled to view the stage. There is around 2000 seats in all.
My last visit was over five years ago for memorable night with local lad Bryan Ferry and where the televised version of the show is replayed from time to time. Another great night was with Phil Collins who brought a full band and where a programme about Genesis is also being replayed on the new to me Sat channel Mainstreet. One of the few singers watched twice there is Elkie Brooks, who upped the sound volume of her band several dimensions above everyone else.
The ticket promised doors open at 8pm which is a giveaway that the main act could be expected around nine. I had messed up most of my day before arriving early enough to enjoy half a pint of Fosters and a bag of crisp. Some Kentucky type fried chicken and the rest of Monday's tined potatoes and runner beans for a mid morning brunch, a salami sandwich for afternoon tea so I needed the crisps to keep me going before a midnight consumption of a salmon salad prepared for eating before the show, put left as I did not feel like it at the time.
Staying up to 4 am did not help of course with the planned early start to out and sort out my mother's bank account and pay the Funeral Bill, and decided on a new gas cooker. The first task on rising slowly about 10.30 am was to find out how to change my credit card pin number to a common one for all such cards, from the replacement card which had arrived in the post and was immediately activated. I failed to log on and then discovered that although I was on Broadband I could not dial out. The mobile was used first to try and connect with faults but after being told I had to wait on line for at least six mins I took the advice I tried the online system. I explained that all three extensions offered clicking, replace the handset and try again advice, or nothing and the mobile check came up busy. The on line check came up clear and eventually I was telephone and advised to use a couple of phones with the test socket in the master box, which for some extraordinary reason had been fitted at the top of the window and required a step ladder to reach. However this worked but the credit card line was busy and unusually there was no wait for a customer service adviser standby option so this meant I was unsure I would be able to use the card to pay the funeral bill, and by the time all this was done it was lunch time and I needed a siesta after having the cooked meal at midday. So I watched some college football, completed 47 level one games of computer chess before I failed to prevent a draw and had to start all over again. Yesterday I forgot to mention that England won the third and therefore series game against Sri Lanka and Ian Botham was shown receiving his knighthood from the Queen. I remember the day when it rained at Kent, and I sat without realising next his wife in the members stand and he came over to join her when rain held up the game for the greater part of the day, and he then went out a spent an hour signing autographs and talking with any and everyone who queued for his attention. There is nothing Prima Donnaish Sir Ian who regularly walks from Land's End to John O'Groats raising money and awareness for the condition of leukaemia. There are a few who have that aura of greatness about them and who have delivered.
This long preamble is to another of those occasions. At eight the hall was no more than half full and we were pleasant entertained by a young female ballad singer song writer who plugged her album which she offered to autograph if you wished to buy. It was between quarter and ten to nine before a podgy Don McLean came on the stage supported by two guitarists, a mountain man drummer and an a pianist keyboard musician who sometimes played both at the same time.
Don is six years younger than me and most of the audience was for once of our generation, or had grown up with his music, but I did spot one young family which two young children and a few young people, someone with their parents and possibly grand parents. The most boisterous standing up at the side and singing all the songs when invited were in their forties and fifties. While is performance of Crying was not as moving as Orbison, no one can, his version was powerful and demonstrated to hold long notes and phrases without taking a breath, developed in his childhood as a means of combating asthma which kept him off school and listening to music of all kinds. The loss of his father at the age of 15 also had a strong influence on his feelings about life.
His ability to think and write creatively was demonstrated on the night when he could not resist commenting about the railings which surround and spoil the look of the balcony asking if we had a lot of jumpers or was this the British attempt at improving Homeland security. I warmed even more when he asked why all the wars were always fought by young people, barely children. I was tempted to ask if he had read my blog!
While he wrote and played songs from an early age, this was always a sideline as a young man, graduating in 1968 in business administration, but then deciding against a masters scholarship at Columbia when offered a full time engagement.
In 1969 he became more widely known for the love song And I love you so…the book of life, and once the page is read, all but love is dead,,, and hen of course the song of song and which tonight he provided a version which went on and on, using different tempos, singing softly and then rousing many to their feet. Of course you know what I mean, American Pie one of the all time great American Songs along with White Christmas. Is there anyone on the planet who does not have an image of the chevy on the levee. One of the twenty or so verses, I think there are more which sums up the feelings of a young mid Atlantic age goes
And in the street the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
And the church bells were broken
And the three men I admire most
The Father, the son and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died in capsulated that rare quality of writing about an event, the death of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Vallens and the Big Bopper, but which expresses feelings which we all have had, in my case the loss of Catholic faith, when the world was never the same afterwards as it had been before.
He finished American Pie and went off to tortuous applause but we all knew this was not the end but I was prepared not hear Vincent, although when he returned the man behind me shouted out Starry Starry Night and this was taken up by three or four others so I could not resist joining in. He then picked up a long arm banjo and one of the guitarists put on straps to play his instrument horizontal so we got a trio of country and western sounds, as we had earlier in the evening bringing images of camp fires with Deep in the Heart of Texas or of western mavericks with the true account of the Billy the Kid, but the he did not let or anyone down with Vincent, Starry Starry night, paint your palette blue and grey, look out on a summer's day with eyes that know the darkness in my soul…they did not listen, they did not know, perhaps they'll listen now……with eyes that watch the world and can't forget, they would not listen they're not listening still, is for me a great hymn to all unrecognised artists of all forms in their own time. Another favourite Castle in the Air, I've got a dream I ant the world to share and castle walls just lead me to despair, is about unrequited love.
Don has toured the world for nearly four decades with half a million New Yorkers listening to their favourites in central park ten years ago so he could be forgiven for doing a professional job for and hour and a half or so for the 1000 or so of us tonight. One quickly forgot his podginess, well look whose talking and all the earlier trivialities of the day and was swept up with image after image of central America, albeit a predominantly white outlook America of mountain men, and prairies cowhands, and college kids of the kind whooping it up at the college game before they went off to war and shed their blood and after just under one hour and three quarters the whole audience rose, not for one more song, but just a heart felt thank for our youth remembered and a memorable evening about which look after I am gone those two children will hopefully be telling their grand kids about their starry starry night.
My last visit was over five years ago for memorable night with local lad Bryan Ferry and where the televised version of the show is replayed from time to time. Another great night was with Phil Collins who brought a full band and where a programme about Genesis is also being replayed on the new to me Sat channel Mainstreet. One of the few singers watched twice there is Elkie Brooks, who upped the sound volume of her band several dimensions above everyone else.
The ticket promised doors open at 8pm which is a giveaway that the main act could be expected around nine. I had messed up most of my day before arriving early enough to enjoy half a pint of Fosters and a bag of crisp. Some Kentucky type fried chicken and the rest of Monday's tined potatoes and runner beans for a mid morning brunch, a salami sandwich for afternoon tea so I needed the crisps to keep me going before a midnight consumption of a salmon salad prepared for eating before the show, put left as I did not feel like it at the time.
Staying up to 4 am did not help of course with the planned early start to out and sort out my mother's bank account and pay the Funeral Bill, and decided on a new gas cooker. The first task on rising slowly about 10.30 am was to find out how to change my credit card pin number to a common one for all such cards, from the replacement card which had arrived in the post and was immediately activated. I failed to log on and then discovered that although I was on Broadband I could not dial out. The mobile was used first to try and connect with faults but after being told I had to wait on line for at least six mins I took the advice I tried the online system. I explained that all three extensions offered clicking, replace the handset and try again advice, or nothing and the mobile check came up busy. The on line check came up clear and eventually I was telephone and advised to use a couple of phones with the test socket in the master box, which for some extraordinary reason had been fitted at the top of the window and required a step ladder to reach. However this worked but the credit card line was busy and unusually there was no wait for a customer service adviser standby option so this meant I was unsure I would be able to use the card to pay the funeral bill, and by the time all this was done it was lunch time and I needed a siesta after having the cooked meal at midday. So I watched some college football, completed 47 level one games of computer chess before I failed to prevent a draw and had to start all over again. Yesterday I forgot to mention that England won the third and therefore series game against Sri Lanka and Ian Botham was shown receiving his knighthood from the Queen. I remember the day when it rained at Kent, and I sat without realising next his wife in the members stand and he came over to join her when rain held up the game for the greater part of the day, and he then went out a spent an hour signing autographs and talking with any and everyone who queued for his attention. There is nothing Prima Donnaish Sir Ian who regularly walks from Land's End to John O'Groats raising money and awareness for the condition of leukaemia. There are a few who have that aura of greatness about them and who have delivered.
This long preamble is to another of those occasions. At eight the hall was no more than half full and we were pleasant entertained by a young female ballad singer song writer who plugged her album which she offered to autograph if you wished to buy. It was between quarter and ten to nine before a podgy Don McLean came on the stage supported by two guitarists, a mountain man drummer and an a pianist keyboard musician who sometimes played both at the same time.
Don is six years younger than me and most of the audience was for once of our generation, or had grown up with his music, but I did spot one young family which two young children and a few young people, someone with their parents and possibly grand parents. The most boisterous standing up at the side and singing all the songs when invited were in their forties and fifties. While is performance of Crying was not as moving as Orbison, no one can, his version was powerful and demonstrated to hold long notes and phrases without taking a breath, developed in his childhood as a means of combating asthma which kept him off school and listening to music of all kinds. The loss of his father at the age of 15 also had a strong influence on his feelings about life.
His ability to think and write creatively was demonstrated on the night when he could not resist commenting about the railings which surround and spoil the look of the balcony asking if we had a lot of jumpers or was this the British attempt at improving Homeland security. I warmed even more when he asked why all the wars were always fought by young people, barely children. I was tempted to ask if he had read my blog!
While he wrote and played songs from an early age, this was always a sideline as a young man, graduating in 1968 in business administration, but then deciding against a masters scholarship at Columbia when offered a full time engagement.
In 1969 he became more widely known for the love song And I love you so…the book of life, and once the page is read, all but love is dead,,, and hen of course the song of song and which tonight he provided a version which went on and on, using different tempos, singing softly and then rousing many to their feet. Of course you know what I mean, American Pie one of the all time great American Songs along with White Christmas. Is there anyone on the planet who does not have an image of the chevy on the levee. One of the twenty or so verses, I think there are more which sums up the feelings of a young mid Atlantic age goes
And in the street the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
And the church bells were broken
And the three men I admire most
The Father, the son and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died in capsulated that rare quality of writing about an event, the death of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Vallens and the Big Bopper, but which expresses feelings which we all have had, in my case the loss of Catholic faith, when the world was never the same afterwards as it had been before.
He finished American Pie and went off to tortuous applause but we all knew this was not the end but I was prepared not hear Vincent, although when he returned the man behind me shouted out Starry Starry Night and this was taken up by three or four others so I could not resist joining in. He then picked up a long arm banjo and one of the guitarists put on straps to play his instrument horizontal so we got a trio of country and western sounds, as we had earlier in the evening bringing images of camp fires with Deep in the Heart of Texas or of western mavericks with the true account of the Billy the Kid, but the he did not let or anyone down with Vincent, Starry Starry night, paint your palette blue and grey, look out on a summer's day with eyes that know the darkness in my soul…they did not listen, they did not know, perhaps they'll listen now……with eyes that watch the world and can't forget, they would not listen they're not listening still, is for me a great hymn to all unrecognised artists of all forms in their own time. Another favourite Castle in the Air, I've got a dream I ant the world to share and castle walls just lead me to despair, is about unrequited love.
Don has toured the world for nearly four decades with half a million New Yorkers listening to their favourites in central park ten years ago so he could be forgiven for doing a professional job for and hour and a half or so for the 1000 or so of us tonight. One quickly forgot his podginess, well look whose talking and all the earlier trivialities of the day and was swept up with image after image of central America, albeit a predominantly white outlook America of mountain men, and prairies cowhands, and college kids of the kind whooping it up at the college game before they went off to war and shed their blood and after just under one hour and three quarters the whole audience rose, not for one more song, but just a heart felt thank for our youth remembered and a memorable evening about which look after I am gone those two children will hopefully be telling their grand kids about their starry starry night.
No comments:
Post a Comment