The Best of Come Together was a celebration to equal the Last Waltz in superlative musicians playing at a peak so rarified that admission is by divine invitation only.
I will call this group Together. As succinct a name as The Band. Vaguely Hippie and Flower Power, but it lives and breathes in the crucial 1965 to 1975 period, when American music fulfilled a necessary spiritual uplift.
The Revolution in the Head. The title of the best book ever written about the Beatles, by British music professor Ian MacDonald. Hence the history of how the Sixties came to be.
The more time passes now, the more this period will be recognised as the equal to Shakespeare and Beethoven in human artistic endeavour. Roll over! And tell Tchaikovsky as well!
Of course, the music tonight is not confined to this time, but history is always messy, and the edges are blurred. It stops just prior to the Punk mini explosion. This is confined to the elements thrown up in the Big Bang of Beatlemania, which contains Punk. The Ramones name is deep Beatles reference anyway.
Let’s begin in the middle. The mini-suite Rock’n’roll tragi-comedy drama piece which occupies side two of Abbey Road.
A slow wintery start because you never give me your money. Psychedelic folky chamber music. The horns sound eternal.
Dream state guitars evoke summer and drinking wine whilst a saxophone plays lounge Jazz.
Such a mean old man Mister Mustard. Rampant Johnny Berry Goode rhythm riffs. Too good as she came in through the bathroom window.
A lullaby for all the children of the Sixties. Once there was a way to get back home.
Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight. Take the load of Fanny. In Nazareth where the guns are blazing.
The love you take is equal to the love you make.
This is the last of the Beatles in the studio before they end the magic. It is probably Prog Rock but it is also much more.
That this band perform with such stellar and seamless artistry is amazing.
The Together band. Jol Mulholland guitars and musical director. He resembles Al Kooper playing at Newport behind Dylan in 1965.
Brett Adams lead guitars. Matthias Jordan keyboards. Alistair Deverick drums. Mike Hall bass. Finn Scholes trumpet, keyboards and percussion. Nick Atkinson tenor saxophone and percussion.
The singers. Dianne Swann (The Bads). Julia Deans (Fur Patrol). Jon Toogood (Shihad). James Milne (Lawrence Arabia). Milan Borich (Pluto). Sam Scott (Phoenix Foundation)
They start the show with Elton John’s Funeral for a Friend/ Love Lies Bleeding. This is a tour-de-force from Jordan. A complex yet smooth band performance for over ten minutes. They herald what will come over the next two and a half hours.
Back in the USSR. Is it too good for words? Of course it is as Jon Toogood plows through this in style. A nod to the Beach Boys and California Girls.
Swann sings Fleetwood Mac’s classic Dreams with crystal visions. The Chain and she is joined by Deans. Adam’s guitar wails on the extended vamp.
Stevie Nick’s Edge of Seventeen and Deans channels the voice appropriately, like an alluring succubus.
Deans goes from hot pants and long black boots, to a sheer maroon outfit, to black-striped glitter. Plays the brash irreverent Rock Chick role and connects to the libido of both sexes.
After the Beatles, the Rolling Stones are the most covered.
Wild Horses sounds note-perfect with Borich singing in the manner of Gram Parsons. Probably his song as much as the Glimmer Twins. Childhood living/ is zeasy to do!
Sympathy for the Devil has the congas or bongos of the album version. The whole song rests on the drone rhythms. Borich shreds the vocals and evokes real menace. This started as a folk song and obviously became possessed by a darker spirit, that of Brian Jones and Anita Pallenberg.
Gimme Shelter took it further but also delivers a salvation. The cost was to open your eyes and mind to the awful and beautiful truth. Deans supplies the banshee wails which nails this performance tonight.
A song of the Apocalypse. Now, and always in the present moment. As Colonel Kurtz states You must make a friend of horror/ Otherwise it is your enemy. In the present time it is vitally important to understand this truth.
These were two key performances which fuelled the Devil fire which erupted at the Altamont concert in 1969. Rape, murder/ It’s just a shot away.
On the other side of the coin, I tell you love, Sister/ It’s just a kiss away.
We are in the midst of these times just as it was in 1969. The pivot point of the Sixties. The best artists rose to the occasion to confront it. Can they do it now? Too many remain cowed.
Neil Young is represented by three stone classics. Hurricane, Powderfinger and Cowgirl in the Sand. These songs a given a polish and a little remastering to enhance them.
Tom Petty’s American Girl is one of my favourites. Dancing around to this in the bedroom whenever Barry Jenkins played it. Which was every night. The jangle guitars are electrifying. Swann does this in a voice similar to Ronnie Ronette.
Dire Straits and you cannot fault this bands mastery of complex songs like Telegraph Road and Tunnel of Love. Both songs are stretched out and extended in a magic carpet ride.
Deans has one more stellar moment with Helter Skelter. The starting car chiming guitar riffs of Robert Johnson’s Terraplane Blues leads it out. She comes close to the manic intensity of Paul McCartney.
David Bowie’s Moonage Dreams are a chance for Milne to shine. He climbs over the barrage sound massed around him as he plays an acoustic guitar and monsters it at the finish.
Heroes is extraordinary. Electronic surrounding field tones which evokes dolphin voices. Milne declaims I will be King! Attempting to become a deity.
It is an overload of riches but who is complaining? No one in the Civic Theatre tonight, as we gorge on the Beggars Banquet.
The Come Together Christmas Revue closes with You Can’t Always Get What You Want.
The pivot point of the Sixties again and the Stones own story. Standing in line with Mr Jimmy. Keyboards shimmer Gospel tones. Everyone is singing. I hallucinate a Keith impersonator shaking maraccas at the back of the stage.
You get what you need.
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Leonie Moreland
