Procol Harum (not) in Budapest

4 July 2004 : Hungarian News Agency

DARSHAN FESTIVAL FEATURES PROGRESSIVE ROCK LEGENDS

The Darshan music festival, held in Budapest on July 17, will feature three British rock legends and the Hungarian bass maverick Jackie Orszaczky.

The British line-up consists of the Spencer Davis Group, Climax Blues Bank and Colosseum. Jackie Orszaczky's Bass Power will come on stage with Maori singer Tina Harrod, who arrived with the percussionists of her band, The Grandmasters, and will play songs from her 2003 album.

The concert, in an intimately small courtyard of Buda Castle, will only last one day this year as one of the major attractions from the line-up, Procol Harum, cancelled the appearance due to the illness of its keyboard player [sic] and composer Matthew Fisher.

Organisers then decided to bring in all the performers on a single day, a move that cancelled an invitation to Nashville Teens.

Note: judge for yourself how authoritative this bulletin can actually be. In fact Josh Phillips was Procol's organist at the time of the proposed show; but tickets were not properly advertised in advance and it seems very likely that economic pressures were behind the organisers' decision to compact the acts they could afford into a single day. The following day, of course, saw the first Procol Proxy Concert