Matt Pegg is now in the Drifters’ Orchestra ...

Perth Concert Hall, 22 March 2007 • a hurried report by Charlie Allison

30+ songs including
There Goes My Baby
Save The Last Dance For Me
Sweets For My Sweet
Up On The Roof
On Broadway
I (Who Have Nothing)
Under The Boardwalk
I’ve Got Sand In My Shoes
Saturday Night At The Movies
At The Club
Come On Over
Kissin’ In The Back Row
There Goes My First Love
You’re More Than Just A Number

After a tip-off from Roland, I travelled 45 miles to Perth tonight to see a great two-hour show by the Drifters, old friends of Gary Brooker’s – in that they performed at a couple of his charity shows and he also recorded a song with them in 2006, which is featured on their new CD.

They played to an audience of about 1,100 in a beautiful new concert hall seating 1,250 which would be good venue for Procol Harum – and not far from the fishing, Gary (in fact the River Tay is only a hundred yards from the door).

The Drifters, Rohan Delano Turney, Peter Lamarr, Victor Bynoe and Patrick Alan call themselves 'family tree descendants' from the original band as they had all sung with original Drifters.

The guys have had an eventful time recently, having survived a major road accident when their tour van was hit by another vehicle on the M6 motorway which had been avoiding a deer.

The Drifters said they had been advised by doctors to rest up for six weeks, but had decided to go ahead with the Scottish leg of their tour – 'only trouble is that the morphine is wearing off, so the choreography won’t be quite so great!' One of them still had a large band-aid on his forehead.

Their backing band was a five-piece – keyboards, guitar, bass, drums and sax (a great young Glasgow guy on his first performance). They were largely in the shadows and far away so my pix are a bit dodgy. At one point in the second half the band were spotlighted – both literally and musically

Matt’s introduction (illustrated left) went like this: “On bass we have one of the foremost bass-players in the UK. He has played with Jethro Tull, Procol Harum and Fairport Convention but now he is in the Drifters' Orchestra. He is from the UK ... Matt Pegg!

Matt played a few neat jazz-soul riffs and got a fairly generous cheer. In fact he played very competently all night, in a genre far removed from Procol Harum.

It was a great show (everyone on their feet, some dancing in the aisles) and the band promised to return (for the third time) in 2008. They had really enjoyed Scotland.

You have guessed what I am going to say next ... would that it was Procol Harum who were so enthusiastic about coming up here, where the audiences are so receptive, and so keen to attend music events.

As for the Drifters, learn more (including tour dates) at their modest (by BtP standards) but well-presented website. There is even a recent picture of the band with Gary Brooker.

Procol dates in 2007

Matt Pegg's page at BtP