As long as I’ve had a cell phone that allows you to customize the ring tone, I’ve used “Sirius” by Alan Parsons. You know the one, the lead in to “Eye in the Sky” made famous by the Chicago Bulls for the lineup introduction at home games.
Last night we got to see the Alan Parsons Live Project in concert at the Stafford Center, 22 years after we saw the original Project live. The venue is a long way from us, on the southwest side of the city, and it was raining very hard, so it took us well over an hour to get there. That didn’t leave us with much time to eat before the show, so we went to Whataburger, the first time I’ve been to that famous Texas institution. It was o-kay.
I bought the tickets for the show long enough ago that I didn’t remember where our seats were, so we were pleasantly surprised to be ushered to the fourth row from the orchestra pit. The venue was really nice, a small arts theater probably more used to symphonic music or stage plays. Reminded me a bit of the Rebecca Cohn Arts Center at my alma mater, Dalhousie University, which is where I first discovered Alan Parsons’ music thanks to my next door neighbor, Rob Levings, during freshman year in residence.
The show started only a few minutes after the designated time, 7:30, and there was no opening act. The band consisted of a drummer who probably burned 5000 calories during the show (no joking, the guy was a maniac), a keyboard player, a percussionist/saxophone and recorder playing vocalist, a bass player, two guitar players, a lead singer and Mr. Parsons himself, who played keyboards, strummed guitars and sang lead on a couple of songs (including “Don’t Answer Me” and “Eye in the Sky”). The sound engineer served double duty by emerging in the audience (behind us) during one song to play the violin.
We were pretty much the average demographic. There weren’t many people much younger than us, although there were quite a few who were older. A lot of people around us were Alan Parsons experts. A couple behind us was related to the lead singer (P.J. Olson).
They performed all the hits fans would recognize and, to our delight, they played the entire I Robot album straight through. At first, I wondered at the wisdom of this, as there are some challenging, experimental songs (notably the final “Genesis Ch.1 V.32”), but it was awesome. For the song “Breakdown,” which features a huge choir in the background, the audience became the choir. We were coached in our two lines and belted them out with gusto:
Freedom, freedom, we will not obey
Freedom, freedom, take the wall away
Sounds like an anthem for today, doesn’t it? After a beautiful rendition of “Don’t Let it Show,” Parsons said, “This is place where you used to have to get up and turn the record over. Now we’ll play Side 2.”
I’ve heard a lot of Alan Parsons concerts before, but this is the first one I know of where the band got to do solos, showcasing their impressive skills. This is also the first concert I can think of where I was close enough to the stage to hear the drummer live rather than through the sound system. He was amazing. At least twice I saw shards of his drumsticks go flying over his shoulder.
Before the song “Limelight,” Parsons paid tribute to his former colleague, the late Eric Woolfson, saying that the song reflected Woolfson’s thoughts about being and not being in the limelight. He had us turn on the lights on our phones during the chorus (which I captured in the slideshow below). He also admonished people to not take video of the concert. Photographs were okay. Not only did recording video violate their copyright, he said, the songs will sound crappy, which to a sound engineer is probably the greater offence.
They played for a solid two hours without intermission. With a revolving group of singers, it’s probably easier for them to do that, although I feared for the drummer, who was casting off sweat at an amazing rate. After a brief gap for an encore demand, they came back to play “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Feather” and a rousing version of “Games People Play” to wrap up the night. It was a fantastic show. Here are a few highlights:
