Jon Lord – Henley Festival 2006

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The fading light of a Summer’s evening on the banks of the Thames in Henley watching original Deep Purple keyboard player Jon Lord perform his magnificent Concerto For Group And Orchestra on a floating stage with a five piece band and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is a pretty awe-inspiring thing. Although not quite Deep Purple and the London Symphony at the Royal Albert Hall, it has to come a close second.

Billed as Jon Lord & The Rock Orchestra, the term “all-star band” was a touch misleading. Not to take anything away from the musicians in the band, who were all outstanding, but the term “star” couldn’t really be applied to any of them. Not just yet, anyway. On the night the band consisted of drummer Wolf Simon, percussionist Mario Argandona, bassist Urs Fuchs, singer Mascha Elstner and guitarist Phil Niesson. The impressive and note-perfect Bournemouth Symphony performed under the expert guidance of Mark Forkgen.

Following an his introduction Jon Lord strolled out to relate his joy at being invited to perform in his home town, and describe the intended themes of the three movements of the concerto. Apparently, the first movement is dominated by the orchestra and the band are trying to get in wherever they can, then the band get more involved in the second, moving back and forth between band and orchestra, trying to merge the two styles, and third represents the joy of actually pulling it off. Jon’s intention, he said, was to bring together the two most influential styles of music from his life. And we all know it worked.

The performance, needless to say, was sensational. Opening with One From The Meadow, a song from Jon’s Beyond The Notes album, which he wrote with vocalist Sam Brown about living in Henley, it became immediately clear that Mascha Elstner is an exceptional singer. Classical/operatic in style, she has a beautiful voice, and it’s a shame they hadn’t rehearsed more songs, and that the Concerto doesn’t have a lot of singing in it. The band didn’t have a lot to do during this song, which was very much a strings and piano piece, but they modestly joined in in the background.

The concerto itself, as many will know, has several parts that really allow the various musicians in the band to show off. Mostly the guitarist, but there are parts for the others. In the original, and tonight, the drum solo still sounds like it was put in for the sake of having a drum solo, and really does jar a bit with the rest, but apart from that everything works perfectly together. Niesson on guitar demonstrated that he was more than capable of playing the parts originally written for the great Ritchie Blackmore and later played to perfection by Steve Morse. Jon was, of course, his usual self, masterful on the Hammond organ, as he has always been known to be.

Witnessing the performance of this piece of music is light-years away from listening to the live CDs, and in such a perfect setting it may be hard to ever regard the CDs in the same way again. Jon hinted once (when a car alarm was going off) that the performance was being recorded, which will be a great release, if the astonishing number of grown adults incapable of staying in their seats for an hour and a half haven’t spoilt it. At times, sitting in a suit watching a classical concert was like being in a cinema full of children, all getting up, moving around, talking too loudly and systemically tripping over every obstacle in their path. Regardless, most of the crowd seemed to enjoy and fully appreciate the performance and the piece of music itself, particularly the small handful that had seen it performed at the Royal Albert Hall for the first time back in 1969.

A suggestion of Deep Purple’s Lazy for an encore unfortunately didn’t come to pass as Jon said he didn’t think the orchestra knew it, so they all came back out and played the closing three-minutes of the concerto for a finale. Unplanned, but played equally as well as the main part of the concert. Jon doesn’t perform the concerto that often, so this really does stand as a rather special event in both performance and rarity. Hopefully he’ll do it again sometime.

“ perfect setting ”

Setlist: One From The Meadow / Concerto For Group And Orchestra Movement I / Concerto For Group And Orchestra Movement II / Concerto For Group And Orchestra Movement III // Concerto For Group And Orchestra Movement III ending

Written by Andy Lye
More: Gigs, Non-metal, Rock, Jon Lord