Procol Harum at the Midtfyn Festival, 4 July 1992

Part-transcript of a Danish TV interview

We join Gary Brooker, in excellent spirits, being interviewed by a pretty reporter backstage at a Danish festival. The chat is interrupted by a squawk from the walkie-talkie: another reporter, Vagn, has been assigned the job of gathering vox-pops from the festival toilets etc., and he wants his moment in the limelight. Not knowing that the camera is still running, Gary gives Vagn short shrift when he asks the perennial question.

Reporter
Do you know where you are, by the way?

Gary Brooker
Where I am?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. You know, I’ve been very disoriented in the last couple of days but we’ve just come from Sweden this morning. We came on the boats and everything. I didn’t know where we were in Sweden. In fact, I asked the audience last night, “Where are we in Sweden?” It’s in Vest, West Sweden We were near, I don’t know, Halmstadt or somewhere like that. So we drove down and I made a point of getting the maps out. I mean, Odense, I’ve been to before, so I, well actually I didn’t know, remember where it was. I thought it was in Jutland but it’s not. It’s somewhere else. So we looked at the map. We all had a look. And found out where we were going and now I know where we are, just about south-southeast of Odense.

Right.

Is it called Rutland or something like that?

That’s right.

Ah.

When you arrive at a festival, I guess a lot of the audience think that the musicians might stay a couple of days. But how long do you stay actually?

We’re playing tomorrow 100 kilometres outside Helsinki, you know, at another festival. So we have to go to the Copenhagen airport tonight, which is a bit of a drag because this looks great here. It looks very well organised. And there’s parties and there’s fun. There’s other artists that one hasn’t seen for years. I mean, I haven’t spoken to Glen Frey yet but he, when the Eagles first started they supported Procol Harum on an American tour. I haven’t seen him since then.

Well, I can tell you that he’s gone home to his wife and his family in London.

Well, there you are, you see. No, I’d have stayed for the party if I’d had had the chance.

Vagn (on the walkie-talkie)
Hello … (then lots of untranscribable stuff)

He wants to know what A Whiter Shade Of Pale is all about.

[Radio noise]

[A very definite Brooker tone] Buy the record and listen to it. Write the words down.

You, you want, try to talk to him.

Hello. Listen, buy the record, write the words down, and work it out for yourself.

[Radio noise]

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

What does A Whiter Shade of Pale mean! – Was that on the camera?

That was on the camera.

[Gary laughs]

Thank you very much because we finally put Vagn on the spot. He’s the outside reporter and he’s like doing all of the, whatchacallit, the toilets and stuff like that. And he really wanted to do the backstage. And we finally got him, I think.

We got him.

Thanks a lot, Gary.

We got him then. Yeah. All right.

And good luck. And kick, uh, whatchacallit?

Kick ass.

Thanks, Jill, for the typing