What was new at 'Beyond the Pale'

December 2004

December 31:

Added the seventh delivery of annual Christmas puzzles (thanks, John)

December 30:

Added the sixth parcel of our annual Christmas puzzles (thanks, John)

Time for another glimpse at the entrancing Procol prizes on offer this year.

December 29:

Added the fifth offering in our annual Christmas puzzle series (thanks, John)

December 28:

Added the fourth dollop of our annual Christmas puzzles (thanks, John)

Reacquaint yourself with the glistening Procol prizes on offer this year.

December 27: Our thoughts and prayers are with the people suffering from the tragic flood in South-east Asia, and everyone with friends and relatives living in or visiting the area. Keep Holding On.

Added the third helping of our annual Christmas puzzles (thanks, John)   Incidentally, Procol Harum at Bloomsbury was heavily advertised to London recently, via the Metro free newspaper (see advert ... 'veterans', indeed!) BtP's latest understanding is that there are about 150 seats left before the show sells out ... So hurry, Palers, or the general public will get them! If you have already got your tickets, let us know the seat numbers for this page : just click here to send us the info

December 26: Procol Harum play London in ten weeks' time : Gary Brooker interview 7pm UK time tonight, Radio Caroline

Added the second instalment of our annual Christmas puzzles (thanks, John)

Refresh your memory of the fabbo Procol prizes on offer this year.

Happy Christmas! Gary Brooker interview 7pm UK time tomorrow night, Radio Caroline

The Commander's Christmas message arrived at BtP by telephone this year so there is no FAX to reproduce: it is as follows ...

Added a page explaining this year's Christmas puzzles, kindly devised for us this year by a Paler from Melbourne, Australia (thanks, John)

Added the first dose of the above conundra (thanks, John)

Added more gig information, including booking info here and here (sorry, no tickets on sale yet)

Christmas Eve:

Can you name a Keith Reid song containing the words 'sea-shells', 'mirror', and 'moonshine'? Answer here (thanks, Wouter)

Added a page of pictures showing Geoff Whitehorn on stage with The Shortlist this month (thanks, The Growling American)

December 23:

Added a page of pictures showing fans at lunch with Gary and the band on 18 December (thanks, Jill)

Added news of a fresh, hour-long Gary Brooker interview (with musical illustrations) to be broadcast the day after Christmas on Radio Caroline, the legendary Pirate Radio station, online and via satellite (thanks, Mark; thanks, Steve)

Stay tuned to Radio Caroline for some Palers' Project tracks on Riga Steve's show, Mondays 9pm to midnight; read Gary Brooker's FAX here

December 22:

Added four more dates, in two countries, to Procol Harum's 2005 concert schedule: see here, here, here and here (thanks, Chris)

Added more pictures to this recent page (thanks, all)

Added some ticket scans ... a couple of them really nice design ... to pages here, here and here

December 21: RIP Dick Heckstall-Smith

Added a first report on Gary Brooker / No Stiletto Shoes playing on Sunday 19 December, Club Riga, Southend

Added some good photos of The Shoes and guests in action from Friday night's gig (thanks, Graham)

December 20: Gary Brooker and No Stiletto Shoes play their final gigs of the present mini-tour.

Added a bare setlist from Gary Brooker / No Stiletto Shoes and Friends gig on Saturday 18 December, at the Chiddingfold Club, Surrey

Yes, we did manage to update BtP during the Shoes mini-tour ... Jens and I were literally on the road, driving round Southend in the dead of the night, looking for hotspots where the wireless LAN could be activated. What cheapskates, you're thinking? There were no paying links to be had, for love nor money. The update for 18 December, however, was a paying one from London ... and the online time cost as much as an entire month's broadband subscription in the UK. Pop goes the weasel :-(

December 19: Procol Harum play London in eleven weeks' time; Gary Brooker and No Stiletto Shoes play their third gig

Added a comprehensive report of the first Shoes gig in Chiddingfold on Friday night ... amazing surprise guests!

Added a photographic page showing that absent friends were not forgotten at the band lunch the following day

December 18: 8.00 pm: Gary Brooker and No Stiletto Shoes play their second of four Charity gigs

Still time to order this excellent double CD album before Christmas: read Gary Brooker's recommendation!

Added a fascinating footnote to the 'Whiter Shade of Weed' story, from the son of Robert Graves. Imagine ... if Chas Chandler or Soft Machine had had more prescient ears, there might have been no Procol Harum. (thanks, Tomás)

December 17: 8pm: Gary Brooker and No Stiletto Shoes play their first of four Charity gigs

Added a page of photos and a report on yesterday's Geoff Whitehorn gig (thanks, One-Eye; thanks Geoff)

'You're supposed to lose weight on tour. I don't ..'

A good moment, perhaps, to re-read the 1996 Shine On Whitehorn interview.

BtP will do its very best to maintain the daily updates that have been our hallmark since we started in October 1997; please note however that for the next few nights both the regular webmasters, and our habitual surrogates from Sweden and from London, will be at Brooker shows in the rustic remotenesses of Surrey or the fastnesses of Essex. We hope we may be forgiven if we can't get online to bring you the latest news as it happens.

December 16:

There's more about Punter in this excellent tape-op interview

December 15:

Added a couple of excellent 1971 stage shots (thanks, Steve; thanks, Steve)

Added a nice graphic, with some personal history for one of the BtP webmasters, to one of the most-visited of BtP's 3,000+ pages

And while we're at it, how about another look at this dreamlike object?

December 14:

Gary Brooker's No Stiletto Shoes concerts on Saturday 18 (Surrey) and Sunday 19 December (Southend) are sold out. However, BtP has a small number of tickets for these two shows, as well as for Friday 17 (Surrey), returned because of illness. If you are interested in using them, immediately send us an e-mail

For information, 91 people in six different countries have bought tickets to the No Stiletto Shoes concerts, through BtP.

Meanwhile, have a moment's fun playing the Procol Harum edition of 'What's That Song', and shame on you if you don't get 10 out of 10! Click on the banner below (thanks, David)

And now, to prepare you for a further seasonal game, have a look at the Fine Prizes on offer in this year's Yuletide Puzzles at 'Beyond the Pale' (thanks, all!)

December 13:

'Beyond the Pale' has just received this excellent FAX from the Commander, Gary Brooker. All Procol Harum fans are urged to read it and act on the contents while stocks last.

December 12: Procol Harum play London in twelve weeks' time

Added an admiring but objective and critical Procol concert report from Chicago in 1991 (thanks, Pam)

Remind yourself of Procol in Chicago just eighteen years before

December 11: Some interesting names are bidding on the final offering in our pre-Christmas auction of original fine-art work by the Grand Hotel artist

' ... well-orchestrated pieces for ... “serious students”... '

Added another review of Procol Harum playing Houston in 1974 (thanks, Mike)

Added a duplicate ticket for a concert in Houston in 1973 (thanks, Mike)

Read another nother review of Procol Harum playing Houston in 1974

December 10:  

Added another couple of Procol Harum dates for next year, here and here! (thanks, Mark)

Can we prompt you to revisit the index page for Procol concerts that we know about? New contributions for this feature are always welcome: just mail us

Added news of Gary Brooker's upcoming television performance of two Procol Harum songs (thanks, Mark)

December 9:

'Until that weekend I had never met anyone unconnected with the group who knew anything about PH ... I was also taken aback at how much it obviously meant to them.'

Interesting to re-read a fan's impressions of the first Palers' gathering, and the first Procol concert, of the current Millennium

December 8:

Added – here and here – illustrations to two pages relating to gigs on the 2003 West Coast tour (thanks, One-Eye)

Added some more to the page for recording seat-numbers, so fans can find each other when Procol play London in March. Seats picked out in colour have been taken by visitors to this website: please send your seat-number and name to be added.

December 7:

Added a page showing the information about The Well's on Fire that Procol management has made available to the press (thanks, Mark and Rob)

Christmas shopping idea
Just a reminder, if you have friends who like to read great contemporary novels! Plans are complete for the three-day Russell Hoban Convention in London, and you can order any of his 13 adult novels by clicking here

December 6:

Non-UK readers may not be familiar with Chad (Floridians may think they are!). Gary Brooker is impersonating Chad in the illustration here. To know more, compare him with the little cartoon (right) and check out Chad's history here: the article it also mentions the US 'Kilroy' character, whom some readers will recognise.

Brooker tickets : just eleven days to the show!
No Stiletto Shoes: until now Gary Brooker's yearly R'n'B fiestas, the legendary Christmas Charity Gigs, have been open to non-local people by word-of-mouth only. For 17 December 2004, however, 'Beyond the Pale' has a number of tickets to reservable online. Visit this page for geographical directions and online ordering – don't forget to specify the name of each punter, or you won't be able to collect your tickets on the door. Remind yourself of some of Gary's guest celebrity musicians, as recorded in our written and pictorial accounts of previous Surrey Christmas Shows: 1994, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2003

December 5: Procol Harum play London in thirteen weeks' time

A few more hours remain in eBay's auction for a unique piece of Procol album artwork: click here and bid now! This illustration is going to look absolutely fantastic, stylishly-framed on some Procoholic's wall. To see the picture in detail, click the link.

Added details of two more Procol Harum shows on the next tour ... here and here (thanks, Chris; thanks, Mark)

Keep an eye on this concert index page, where we hope to bring you more Procol gigs soon

At least one of the BtP webmasters was born in a Salvation Army home, so it's a pleasure to publish this Sally Ann advertisement including a link to the Superdrug appeal (thanks, Axel)

Doubtless this will remind you of our fairly-recent Brooker lookalike story, and related correspondence

December 4: The Norwegian Christmas tables go on and on and on. But now I'm back and the update done:

Added some news of a Brooker & Reid interview (thanks, Rob)

Added the press release that Procol management have put out about the upcoming Bloomsbury, London concert (thanks, Mark)

Here's a press-kit from a while back that readers may like to revisit

December 3: Two more days to stake your claim for this unique Procol item

Sorry for delayed update, but Jens is busy with what Norwegians call  Christmas Tables (Christmas Lunch in Denmark), which basically means you eat a lot and you drink even more, and you get home very late (if at all). Hope to resume the usual reliable service in a few weeks' time.

Added a review of Procol Harum playing Houston in 1974 (thanks, Mike)

Added a ticket for the above concert (thanks, Mike)

Geoff Whitehorn fans will already know that tonight he kicks off a German tour with Roger Chapman and the Shortlist (thanks, Hans Teutiger)

December 2: RIP Kevin Coyne

Added an advertisement from 1971 for the a Procol Harum album with no 'omnipresent liturgical organ' ... read it in conjunction with the Kate Bush / Matthew Fisher piece we ran last month (thanks, Jill)

ompare another Barricades advertisement from the same era ...

December 1:

Added a page shewing some of the quotations from Gary Brooker that are printed in the book associated with the Concert for George (thanks, Sally)

Remind yourself of another piece of writing by Gary, with a Beatle connection.

Read what was new on this website in previous months