Customer Reviews

Live With The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra

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There seems to be a major resurgence of interest in 1970s music as today's 15-25 year olds rediscover music from that decade. I grew up in the 70s and my friends' teenaged sons and their friends are now frequently asking me about 70s bands and looking for lesser known bands and albums from that era.

Procol Harum is one band I've told them about.

Many people nowadays only know Procol Harum from their two songs that get radio play: Conquistador and Whiter Shade of Pale. But this band has a fairly extensive catalogue from the late 1960s and early 1970s. The individual members of Procul Harum were considered musicians' musicians and had careers outside this band. Among other credits, Robin Trower played guitar for Procul Harum until the Broken Barricades album, released in 1971 before this album appeared; Gary Brooker played in Eric Clapton's band in the 1980s; Matthew Fisher produced the first two albums of Robin Trower's solo career: Twice Removed From Yesterday and Bridge of Sighs.

This is the album that Procul Harum's hit track Conquistador came from.

It's a live performance from 1972 with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and is one of the best of the early collaborative sessions featuring a symphony orchestra paired with a major rock act. Other albums from the period featuring an orchestra with a rock band included the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed and Deep Purple's Concerto For Group and Orchestra.

This remastered reissue is worth having. The sound is really good and there are some extra tracks, including a concert version of the song Luskus Delph that wasn't included on the original album but was instead released on the B-side of the 45 rpm single of Conquistador.

There are a few other extra tracks that were taken from the rehearsals for the original 1972 concert. They're worth having but I can't help wondering why a few of the rehearsal tapes are being put on the reissue rather than the entire live concert performance being released on the remastered and reissued CD. Anybody out there know the answer to that? Maybe add a comment with the answer if you do.

For anyone checking out Procul Harum, my suggestion is to start with this CD and with the DVD or Bluray of the band's 2003 Live at the Union Chapel concert (I've rated Live At The Union Chapel as 5 stars on Amazon). Live At The Union Chapel gives a live set including most of the Procul Harum's best known material and this album with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra was arguably the band's best known 1970s album.

Both are worth checking out. Highly recommended.

Maybe I'm not competent to write a review for this CD because I'm a big fan of this kind of music (combination of Rock Band with Symphony/Philharmonic Orchestra). For me, the orchestra brings rock music to the next, higher level and this is an album that proves it. I have some albums of this kind and almost every of them is fantastic (Deep Purple, Yes, Elton John, Styx, Caravan, Scorpions, Ian Anderson, Sting...Procol Harum). By the way, Procol Harum was one of the first who did it, and they did it perfect. There is just a few bands that tried making albums with orchestra because it is not an easy job, it takes a lot of work. If you are not a big fan of this kind of music, try with this cd and I think you will become one.