Procol Harum on DVD

'Live at the Union Chapel' : Gary Brooker interviews (2)

This was the last gig of the tour. Did that make a difference to the band's performance? (1.40)

They're all peaks, they're all peaks man. It’s very diff, it’s always difficult to tell. Sometimes I, you know, you can come offstage and 'think that was great' or 'that was terrible'. But the artist playing up on stage, what they consider 'great' and 'terrible' are almost impossible for somebody outside to sometimes see. But on ... you know, having said that ... you do have some remarkable gigs sometimes and you do have some somewhere the technicalities of stuff gets wrong ... you know a hall with a terrible sound and things like that. We come on two hours late for some bizarre reason. And that can all affect a night but generally speaking, things are of a, you know, within an area of quality that hopefully, one we don’t steer [sic], but we’re always aiming to play better that night than the night before. And that’s what we tried, that’s what we did at Islington. We always try, we always play better or we try to play better than the night before and that was, because it was our last night, I think we played longer, we played some songs that we hadn’t played, of course, for a few weeks or something; because suddenly we were in England. So some of our Continental favourites we, you know, we don’t particularly play here and then we’ll find something else.

What was particularly special about the whole day? (1.10)

I had a very busy day because I had to go up to Buckingham Palace in the morning. I had to get up really early to go to Buckingham Palace to get an award. And I’d already promised to go out to lunch with some people. And that was also arranged. But then it turns out that we’re playing in London as well. But not only are we playing in London, we’re making a DVD as well. And, I thought, I can’t not go to the Palace. And if I go to the Palace, I’ve got to go out for lunch afterwards. And it just made a very, very, a fantastic day that built and built. You know, I’ll never forget that day because from the start to the end of coming, in fact, it didn’t end when we came off-stage: we actually went out for something to eat, you know. It was still going at two in the morning because it was the end of tour. So the whole day kind of built and built and built and built. And it was, it was a great, great day. It was also totally exhausting, totally exhausting. 

What is the significance of the third verse of A Whiter Shade of Pale? (2.18)

Yeah, well, on Danny Baker’s show, on the radio in London, which is an early morning show, I’ll go up there, you know, half-past seven. He’s full of beans, as these people that do that kind of job are because they’ve been up since four. I’m still trying to get the cobwebs out of my eyes and saying, you know, “Can I have my seventh cup of coffee, please?” But I think it was somebody 'phoned in. There was quite a lot of interest about what’s known as other, yeah, a 'third' verse of A Whiter Shade of Pale. We very rarely play it, not because we don’t like it or it doesn’t fit but we have so much material to play that sometimes you could use that minute-and-a-half elsewhere. And it probably takes a good minute-and-a-half to do an extra verse in A Whiter Shade of Pale. And but when we played in Islington at the Union Chapel, in fact, it’s never planned, just like our set is never too, too strict. And nobody ever knows how A Whiter Shade of Pale is going to go and what kind of ending it has or how many verses. We generally just do the two verses. But now and again, I’ll take it in my head that, you know, 'These look like they understand English, we’ll try another verse'. And if I sing what’s known as the 'third' verse, in fact it comes in the middle of the song, Matthew then knows that therefore this will be a three-verse version so he’s got room in one of his instrumental portions to stretch out a bit and play something different. So it’s all ... you don’t have to write it down on a list, 'A Whiter Shade of Pale with three verses'. If I start, if I don’t go ... whatever the words are, if I sing, “She said, ‘I’m home on shore leave’”, which is, I believe, the, one of the extra verses, then everybody knows that this will be three verses, probably, unless I’ve had a brainstorm.

What does the future hold for Procol Harum? (1.59)

As far as, as far as the future goes, I mean, I mean, people play music because they want to. People play music publicly because somebody else is interested in it as well. There’s two ways or three ways, perhaps, that those two items can come together. One is by the new method that we’re speaking to now, which is like the audio-visual thing, like with the DVD, which is a replacement, really, for a live show. And I don’t think, as much as I like DVDs – because they reach people in places that we’re not going to play – but live music, to me is something which is eternally important and which we’ve always had a strength at. And I would absolutely be distraught if I could not go out and play on stage and go out and play Procol songs. As far as the CD, the audio market goes, I mean, that means writing songs. And I think that, but, you know, we’ve quite often written songs just to play on stage with no thought of making a record of them. So it doesn’t stop the creative flow if there’s no outlet in certain areas. But, of course, you do have to play them. At some point, you write a song, you’ve got to perform it to people. And that’s what, that’s what the future holds. It’s what it held in the first place, and like, which is creating songs to play to people (long pause, mysterious expression). Whoa! Pretty heavy, man.

Thanks, Jill, for the transcription