Milos Karadaglic. Birmingham Town Hall. Last night. Not only is he a brilliant player but also a wonderful musician/interpreter. They do not always coincide imho. His 2007 Greg Smallman guitar sounds wonderful.
Sor Variations on a Theme by Mozart, Op. 9
Bach Chaconne
Albeniz from the Suite española, Op. 47, “Asturias” (Leyenda)
“Granada” (Serenade)
“Sevilla”
Villa-Lobos Five Preludes
London’s Royal Festival Hall, 28th May 2022
Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor ‘Choral’
Mendelssohn - The Hebrides Overture
Edvard Grieg - Piano Concerto in A Minor
Philharmonia Orchestra and The Bach Choir
Conductor - Oliver Gooch
The Hebrides Overture was played very nicely and has now encouraged me to try to familiarise myself more with Mendelssohn’s work.
Grieg’s piano concerto featured Ivana Gavric on the piano, and she is clearly a very talented pianist. I felt though that the string section lacked ‘body’ and made the piece sound a little lightweight at times.
After the interval we moved onto the ‘headline act’, Beethoven’s 9th. I have several recordings of this and have also seen/heard it performed live on a few occasions, so it’s a piece I had particularly looked forward to and one that I’m quite familiar with. Sadly I found myself less than impressed with last night’s performance. The strings lacked any sense of authority (as with the Grieg piece), the brass and timpani sections were over-dominant throughout (verging on stridency at times) and many parts of the work appeared to be played with an indecent haste. The orchestra at times seemed not to have sufficient time to give the sound the grandeur it desperately needed. Although the four vocal soloists were capable enough, it seemed as if they had not met before. There was no cohesion of their voices and at one stage the mezzo-soprano clearly appeared to panic when she completely lost her place. The choir similarly did not, for me, imbue the piece with the dynamics and drama it needs and deserves.
I appreciate that everyone’s tastes are different, and this is entirely my own personal opinion. Overall, for me, the performance brought to mind the cold, lightweight, electronic version of the work as featured in ‘Clockwork Orange’. Sadly disappointing.
Royal Albert Hall - The Lord Of The Rings played by Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra. Beautifully done and sung with a choir and a lady doing all those famous bits. You know. Wish I knew who she was, as she was brilliant.
Whitesnake (with Foreigner and Europe) at Glasgow, Newcastle and Cardiff. Because once just isn’t enough.
How was it? I’m going to see him at the Usher Hall and I’m looking forward to it big time.
It was fantastic. He played for for 90 minutes with a 10 minute encore which is pretty impressive for an 80 year old. Plus he still plays with the passion of 50 years ago. I’m sure you will enjoy it.
Macca in Orlando on Saturday night. I was expecting this to be a purely nostalgic, “see him while you can” event. But the old fella was spectacular. He’s a consummate showman, charming the 50,000+ crowd with his stories and his just-a-scouser-who-got-lucky persona. Yes, his voice is showing the strain (he’s 80 in a couple of weeks!), but the (almost) 3-hour extravaganza was sensational. A lovely antidote to the disappointment of another well-known Liverpool outfit in Paris earlier in the day.
Great Band. They take the music seriously, but not themselves.
True…never ever left a Thunder gig disappointed.
I’ve been lucky enough to see Macca a few times. He never leaves the audience disappointed.
Amongst all the wannabee ‘legends’ he is the real deal.
Jeff Beck with surprise guest Johnny Depp at Sheffield City Hall.
Surprised how many of these tracks I knew from the charts back in the day.
.sjb
El Becko at Royal Albert Hall tonight - I haven’t seen him live before but he is the most naturally gifted guitarist I have seen live. Astonishing. Finished with a brilliant version of ‘A Day in the Life’.
During the performance a famous pirate playing actor appeared. In his four songs he used four guitars while Jeff Beck used one guitar for whole performance. Just saying 
My all time favourite guitar player this evening at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh. How does he do it?! Just stunning.
Patti Smith at Bearded Theory Festival. Not the last band I saw there, but a real highlight.
Eric Clapton yesterday in the Olympiahalle in Munich. I had never been to a concert before where you could not see the main act. The stage was in darkness except for backlighting and projected monochrome live video footage.
In the middle of the acoustic set there was a hige thunderclap and the sound went dead. So then dark stage and no sound except for lots of people calling “we can’t see you Eric”. Really strange experience; however he is playing as well as ever and there were moments of sheer brilliance as you would expect from a guitar deity.
