Monday 10 May 2010

Best Coast

So I was working tonight at the Royal Festival Hall for Glen Campbell peforming his 'Greatest Hits and More' show. And it saddens me to say the night was quite a poor shambles, far from being a storming return of a classic country star, Glen just came across as unproffesional, at best.

Either suffering from an alcohol addiction or perhaps just being quite lazy, Glen look bored and awkward on stage: putting his hands in his pockets for solo routines, hamming up a pre-rehearsed banjo duel offer (lifted straight from Deliverance), hitting bum notes, taking his guitar off after a number only to realise he needed it straight away, finally walking off stage pre-encore with his microphone still in hand. Even the material he played, mostly covers of old country songs and scaled down contemporary rock classics (Foo Fighters, Greenday) seemed like a cheap, uninspired attempt to copy the success Johnny Cash acheived just before his death. The emphasis was hardly ever on 'Greatest Hits'.

It seemed like perhaps Glen was just a guy who got lucky with a couple of tracks in the 70's and now was milking it for all he could (which wasn't much by the way only about 42% of seats were sold for the 3000 seater RFH). By the end of the concert though I felt that maybe Glen wasn't the greedy sloth that I had pegged him as, and that he was being forced into this by a support and backing band of friends and family who were either using him to further thier own careers or just didn't want to let go of the stage. Despite the admiration and applause of a Yankophile audience, the whole event didn't sit well with me.

That said, when he played Rhinestone Cowboy my heart completely melted.


A clip of Jon Lovitz in High School High, sadly only available in German

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