Thirty over Forty (1)
W George Lovell for 'Beyond the Pale'
I have been a
fan of Procol Harum ever since A Whiter Shade of Pale insinuated itself
on my consciousness in June 1967. Just turned sixteen, I had never heard
anything like it before. Back then in Glasgow there was precious little sign, at
least in my teenage travails, of the love that was said to mark the summer
elsewhere, but I lived in hope. It took two more years for the arrow to pierce,
and another year after that until I finally got to hear Procol Harum play
live in concert. The two events are milestones in my life, ones I have been
moved to write about in a memoir that takes its title, The Waiter Brought a
Tray, from one of Keith Reid’s signature lines in A Whiter Shade of Pale.
My memoir charts seventeen of my twenty-seven concert outings with Procol Harum
between 1970 and 2007, beginning at Green’s Playhouse in Glasgow and ending at
St John’s Smith Square in London.
What follows are vignettes that bring my gig tally to
thirty – itinerant forays across Europe and North America in pursuit of a
passion that has lasted forty years, one that (like Procol Harum itself) shines
on brightly.
Lofty Peak Twenty-Eight (Boston, 15 June 2010)
Much as I enjoy the thrill of San Francisco, the buzz of
New York, or the glitter of Chicago, Boston remains my favorite American city,
its charms (whether of people or of place) myriad and captivating, visit after
visit. I never tire of the leafy look and romantic feel of Beacon Hill, where I
once toiled away with my colleague and friend Chris Lutz working on a book about
the ravages unleashed on Central America by conquistadors who arrived “with
sword held high”. Chris, with whom I have collaborated on research projects for
over three decades, was aware of how much Procol Harum means to me, and even
knew some of their songs; but he had never heard the group perform live. I
planned to fix that, so with my long-time Procol pal Wilson Brown, whom I first
bumped into at the Paradise Club when the band played in Boston in 1992, we met
up and headed over to the Bank of America Pavilion, a premium venue on the
city’s historic waterfront, an area very much in the throes of urban renewal. We
basked in the sun of a warm summer evening, relishing the breeze and admiring
the scene, crowned by the sight of the USS Constitution, illuminated in
tall-ship splendour on the far side of the harbour. Drinking a cool Harpoon Ale,
brewed on premises just a stone’s throw away, made me wonder if its seafaring
name might auger well for a rendition of Whaling Stories. I wasn’t to be
disappointed.
At 7.30pm prompt, as they did the very first time I heard
them, when they also opened for Jethro Tull, Procol Harum started with Shine
on Brightly. Geoff Whitehorn’s guitar riffs swirled resoundingly around the
arena, filling up the covered space and spilling over to the open section that I
circumnavigated in search of an optimal vantage point. Homburg and
Pandora’s Box came next, followed by Whaling Stories; another Harpoon
Ale felt more than justified. Sporting a smart white shirt and an elegant red
jacket, Gary Brooker, at the helm of his piano keyboard, looked very much master
and commander of HMS Procol and crew. When he addressed the audience, however,
he assumed the role of financial consultant.
“Anyone out there have money invested with Lehman Brothers?” he inquired. I
heard a few disgruntled remarks and some jeering whistles. Gary then turned
spiritual advisor, adding “Well if you did, you’ve now got what we’ve all got.”
He swung assertively into The Wall Street Blues, reminding us that “they
couldn’t have done it without your greed” – point well taken: complicity stalks
us at every turn. Tongue-in-cheek reflection of that particular Manhattan
malaise became decidedly more solemn with a second song pertaining to New York,
The Blink of an Eye, Keith Reid’s meditation on the events of 11
September 2001. No more living on easy street after that incident. A
crowd-pleasing Simple Sister changed the mood completely, only for Gary
to revert to a more melancholy vein with his next choice. He joked at first that
he needed to “slow things down” because of cramp in a dodgy shoulder, and
maintained the revelry a few seconds more by introducing bassist Matt Pegg as
“formerly of Jethro Tull.” Then he got down to business.
“We don’t play this often,” he remarked. I recognised
immediately the sombre strains of Barnyard Story, which I was about to
hear played live, four decades in the waiting.
Roland Clare’s liner notes to the
Live at Ledreborg CD offer some insightful comments from Gary himself
about the repertoire, and how best to draw from it.
‘“A lot of Procol stuff is darkness,” he acknowledges. “We have a few slow
sunset songs; it’s harder to get the atmosphere of slow ones across – unless
it’s a Procol-friendly crowd.”’ Having judged the Boston audience to be
“Procol-friendly,” even though most people were there to hear Jethro Tull,
Gary’s instinct led him to deliver as dark but beautiful a song as ever was
written, right up there in my estimation with Henry Purcell’s finale to Dido
and Aeneas.
“Chicken in the farmyard, there’s an oven in your bin,” he sighed. “You are
growing old with sorrow; you are growing fat with sin.” Midway through, Geoff
strummed a funereal march, after which came the plaintive cry “Maybe death will
be my cure,” the Procol Harum lyric echoing Purcell’s imagery of the grim reaper
at times being hailed as “a welcome guest”: ‘When I am laid in earth, may my
wrongs create / No trouble in thy breast. / Remember me, but forget my fate.’
Having ploughed a reflective furrow, Gary decided to stay
put, offering next a heart-breaking rendition of A Salty Dog, during
which I drifted back to the shores of my youth. The roll of Geoff Dunn’s drums
was like the swell of the sea, furnishing nostalgic momentum. A rollicking
Conquistador, featuring some stellar playing by organist Josh Phillips, led
almost instantly into A Whiter Shade of Pale, with Geoff cupping his ear
to prompt the crowd in calling out for more. It did, but to no avail.
“Always been a good town for Procol Harum, has Boston,”
Gary responded as the band lined up to sustained applause, “despite that
business about the tea.” Spoken like a proud, mindful member of the Order of the
British Empire.