OFF: Jon Lord Downunder

[William Duffy]

Hi there

I know this isn't anything to do with HW, BOC, & associates, but I felt I
needed somewhere to whinge about the gawdawful abomination that I was
unfortunate enough to witness last night, Jon Lord's Concerto For Group &
Orchestra. Being in West Australia we were given a band called George to
fill the shoes of Deep Purple. Personally, I'd never heard of them, but they
are apparantly very big downunder. I had sen pictures of them, & had visions
of an Australian TV show called Hi-5, combined with a UK band called S Club
7!!!
I had always thought the concerto was to take 2 complete extremes of music,
& somehow merge them into something dramatic & original (thus classical &
hard rock). The tickets for this concert was $30 if you were under 25, & $45
if you were over (in other words, fans of George get a discount, but fans of
Deep Purple don't).

This show was dreadful! George did not fit the shoes of Deep Purple at all,
& could quite easily have been any of those aforementioned groups. The only
member of the group who showd any talent was their drummer, who was the only
person (other than Jon Lord himself) to do any sort of solo. They did have a
female playing piano, who played what sounded like a piece of music from
Peter Pan at the exact point in the composition where a certain Mr.
Blackmore would have been doing his bit.

I could go on & on about how bad this was but won't. I was even annoyed when
Jon Lord claimed George to be one of the most talented bands he has ever
worked with! There are plenty of musicians living here in WA that would have
fitted the bill more aptly. Perth even has a local musician who has worked
overseas with Jon Lord on numerous occasions by the name of Jamie Paige
(He's on Cozy Powell's last album), but I suspect the idea was to get people
of all ages there, thus they chose a band that is popular with young
screaming girls (who all actually screamed every time someone on stage said
the word 'George").

I am dreading his next tour of The Gemini Suite, with The Wiggles filling in
all the appropriate bits!

Let's hope not to many of our idols go down the same sad path!!!!

William