Procol Harum

Beyond
the Pale

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Procol Harum at Bodo, 2 April 2005

Kjell Nordeng in Avisa Nordland


En klassiker i god form
Procol Harum er mer enn bare "A Whiter Shade of Pale". Likevel har låten et spesielt historisk sus. I helga spiller bandet i Bodø Kulturhus
.

A classic in good shape
Procol Harum amounts to more than just A Whiter Shade of Pale, though that song does still exert its historic spell. This weekend the band plays in Bodø Kulturhus.

Gary Brookers sjelfulle vokal rapporteres å være ved full "førlighet".

Gary Brooker's soulful vocal is reported
to be of full vigour.

Mannskapet nå: Procol Harum stiller med Gary Brooker, sang og piano, Mark Brzezicki, trommer, Matthew Pegg, bass, Jonathan (Josh) Phillips, Hammond orgel B3 (utlånt av Bjørn Andor Drage) og Geoff Whitehorn, gitar.

The crew now: Procol Harum comes with Gary Brooker, song and piano, Mark Brzezicki, drums, Matthew Pegg, bass, Jonathan (Josh) Phillips, Hammond B3 (lent by Bjørn Andor Drage) and Geoff Whitehorn, guitar.


Procol Harum turnerer igjen. På nettet finner vi begeistrede uttalelser både fra fans og anmeldere, og mye tyder på at bandet leverer ferske låter og gamle klassikere med energi og innlevelse.

Procol Harum are on tour again. On the net we find excited utterances from both fans and reporters: there's a lot to suggest that the band delivers fresh songs and old classics with energy and involvement.

Og ikke minst rapporteres selve Procol-essensen, Gary Brookers sjelfulle vokal, å være ved full "førlighet". Spillelistene viser at publikum kan glede seg til et bredt utvalg av Procols beste, og ikke uventet gjemmer bandet rosinen i pølsa til slutt: "A Whiter Shade of Pale" er nemlig siste ekstranummer under vårens turnè.

Not least of these reports is the news that the essence of Procol Harum, Gary Brooker's soulful voice, is fully alive. The setlists show that the audience can look forward to a wide selection of Procol's best, and unsurprisingly the band withholds 'the cheery on the cake' until the end: A Whiter Shade of Pale is the last encore in this spring's tour.

Er det så et såkalt viktig band Bodø nå får besøk av? Det faktum at superhiten fra 1967 både var en del av "soundtracket" til sin samtid og har overlevd tidens tann tilsier et dundrende ja. Rock-kjennere er også på fornavn med store deler av Procol-materialet, og endelig var bandet også blant nybrottsmennene for den ambisjonsrike rocken de selv var med på å videreføre på 70-tallet.

Is it a so-called 'important' band that now visits Bodø? The fact that the super-hit from 1967 was integral to the soundtrack of its time, and has been spared by time's destructive hand, suggests a thundering 'yes'. Furthermore connoisseurs of rock are on first-name terms with large parts of the Procol repertoire, and the band were the groundbreakers for their particular brand of ambitious rock which became a movement throughout the 70s.

Fra hippienes glansdager
Da "A Whiter Shade of Pale" kom ut våren 1967 var ungdomskulturen på tur inn i hippienes glansdager, The Summer of Love. Vietnamkrigen skapte en blanding av politisk engasjement og naiv, dopdrevet eskapisme, noe som for rockens del fant sitt utløp i psychedelia-æraens eksplosive kreativitet.

From golden hippy days
When A Whiter Shade of Pale was released in the spring of 1967, youth culture was entering its golden hippy days. The summer of love. The Vietnam war created a mixture of political involvement and naive, drug-fuelled escapism, something that – in the rock sphere – widened into the explosive creativity of psychedelia.

I Procol Harums debut-år preget nyskapende LP-er fra The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix og The Doors populærmusikken, og blant hitlåtene som fanget tidsånden var "A Whiter Shade of Pale". Som rock-fanatisk 17-åring ble undertegnede grepet av stemningen i det Bach-avledede orgeltemaet, og ikke minst var Keith Reids lyrikk en kilde til undring.

In Procol Harum's début year groundbreaking LPs from The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors dominated popular music, and among the hit songs that represented the Zeitgeist was A Whiter Shade of Pale. As a rock fanatic 17-year-old this writer was taken by the mood in the Bach-derived organ theme, and Keith Reid's lyric was scarcely a lesser source of wonderment.

Flertydig lyrikk.
"We skipped the light fandango, turned cartwheels `cross the floor, I was feeling kind of seasick ... that her face at first just ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale".

Selv sindige nordlendinger som fikk hippiekultur og "make love not war" - slagord primært via plater og svart-hvite tv-bilder ble slått av ordene. Og de sitter fortsatt spikret. Hos mange.

Lyrics with many meanings
"We skipped the light fandango, turned cartwheels 'cross the floor, I was feeling kind of seasick ... that her face at first just ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale".

Even Stoical northerners, who got the hippie culture and the 'make love not war' slogan primarily through records and black and white TV pictures, were struck by the words, and – like many others – they remain transfixed.

Om vi forsto teksten? Viktigst var det at den drømmende flertydige lyrikken traff den dopflørtende hippietidens hang mot mystikk. At senere generasjoner tatt låten til sitt bryst skyldes nok dens melodiske kvaliteter og Gary Brookers sjelfulle vokalformidling. I 1967 toppet "A Whiter.." de internasjonale hitlistene ukevis, og i 1972 fikk den en ny salgs-vår. I fjor meldte BBC at "Whiter.." er de siste 70-årenes mest radio-spilte sang i England, og i 2000 kåret norske radio-lyttere den til tidenes beste.

Did we understand the words? The most important aspect was that the dreamlike, polyvalent lyrics appealed to the appetite for mysticism among the hippies as they flirted with dope. That later generations have taken the song to heart is probably down to its melodic qualities and Gary Brooker's soulful vocal delivery. In 1967 A Whiter Shade of Pale topped the international hit-lists for months, and in 1972 it enjoyed a further lease of life. Last year the BBC reported that A Whiter ... is the most-played radio song in England of the last seventy years , and in 2000 Norwegian radio listeners voted it the best song of all time. 

Sterk andre-single.
Procol Harums ambisiøse, klassisk-influerte rockuttrykk fikk både nære slektninger i 70-tallets progrock, men for Brooker og co stoppet singleeventyret midlertidig med den sterke andre singlen "Homburg" (1967).

Strong second single
Procol Harum's ambitious, classically-influenced rock expression has close relatives in the prog rock of teh 70s. But for Brooker and co the 45rpm adventure stopped for a while with the strong single Homburg (1967)

Bandet turnerte likevel hyppig i årevis, og mens fansen ble eldre og nye helter overtok medie-bildet ble interessen for Procol Harum holdt ved like av LP-er som "Grand Hotel" og "A Salty Dog", samt enkeltlåter som "Conquistador" og "Pandora`s Box". Etter "Prodigal Stranger" (97) var det foreløpig slutt.

Even so the band toured extensicely for years, and while the fans got older and new heroes came to dominate the media, interest in Procol Harum was kept alive by LPs like Grand Hotel and A Salty Dog, and individual songs like Cinquistador and Pandora's Box. After Prodigal Stranger (97) [sic] it was over for a while.

(and that's how it ends! Trans. by Jens and Roland)


Procol at Bodo and again

Procol Harum concerts in 2005: index page

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