November 2009 Archives

PAUL CARRACK,
Birmingham Town Hall

PAUL Carrack, one of Britain's best ever singer-songwriters, made a triumphant return to Birmingham's refurbished Town Hall on Wednesday evening, putting on a superb two-hour show to an enthralled, capacity crowd.

This is no all-action, special effects, gimmicky show, just eight fine musicians playing great songs. The lighting could have been more inventive and the huge on stage projection screen was totally ineffective, but those criticisms aside, this was a terrific night's entertainment.

Paul's backing band of keyboards, sax, trumpet, guitar, bass and drums entered the stage in black suits, white shirts and black ties, reminiscent of The Blues Brothers - minus the sunglasses, whilst backing singer Lindsay Dracass looked gorgeous n black dress and red leather gloves.

GILLAN
Live Triple Trouble
(Edsel)

WHEN I was drumming for Black Sabbath in 1983 and 1984 , the lead singer of the band was Ian Gillan, and we became good friends.

Ian is most famous, though, for fronting Deep Purple, and only a couple of weeks ago they played Birmingham's LG Arena.

However, in the years that Ian was not with Deep Purple, before re-joining them in 1985, he made many solo albums.

This 3-CD set consists of live performances from the early 80s.

Disc one was recorded at London's Rainbow Theatre in April 1981 and features such rockers as Unchain Your Brain, Bite The Bullet and Purple anthem Smoke On The Water.

Disc two features songs from BBC Radio 1 series Friday Rock Show recorded later in '81 and includes No Laughing In Heaven, Vengeance and Born To Kill.

Disc three features Ian and his band headlining the Reading Festival in August 1981.

Exactly two years later he would be doing the same thing alongside Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and myself with Black Sabbath!

My enduring memory of Ian was how he could party until the early hours, yet still be first up in the morning, with no sign of a hangover, greeting us with a cheery "Good morning chaps!"

Then he'd go on to complete the Times crossword!

That's right folks here's another week of questions for you. See how you get on!

Well, I've played some unusual instruments over my years with The Move, ELO and Black Sabbath.

But this takes the biscuit ...

Quiz time folks - see how you get on!