Celebrating life
Three Bocellis perform at Unesco World Heritage Site, Hegra, Saudi Arabia
ONE of the most loved tenors in the world, Maestro Andrea Bocelli, gave a stunning performance within the surrounds of the Unesco World Heritage Site, Hegra on Sunday night.
The concert’s many highlights included a performance from Maestro Bocelli with his 9-year-old daughter Virginia. The duo sang Hallelujah to the delighted crowd attending the event.
It is the first time Maestro Bocelli has shared the stage with both his son Matteo and his daughter. The multi-talented family showed off their musical prowess with Maestro Bocelli swapping instruments throughout the performance.
Songs included favourites from Puccini, hits from the artists most recent album, Believe, as well as songs from the Greatest Showman and Carousel.
Fans both at the event and millions watching live on YouTube globally were not disappointed as Maestro Bocelli finished the show with an encore of Time to Say Goodbye.
As well as a surprise performance from young talent Virginia Bocelli, the master tenor was joined by musicians from the Arabian Philharmonic and special guests Loren Allred, Matteo Bocelli, soprano Francesca Maionchi, accompanied by Eugene Kohn on the piano.
Maestro Bocelli is said to be able to play any instrument and proved this on arrival at AlUla International Airport by playing a rendition of O sole mio on a Qanoun, or Zither.
Maestro Bocelli says the concert was about a celebration of life and music,
“Our planet is beautiful and music is the world’s great unifier, so this moment for us has been about spreading a little joy as we all see the light at the end of the tunnel and look forward to enjoying music together again soon.”
The concert marks the third successive year that Maestro Bocelli has performed in AlUla having delighted audiences at the previous two Winter at
Tantora festivals. However, this is the first time that the ancient city of Hegra was the setting for a music event of this calibre.
Hegra, built in the first century BCE by the Nabataean Kingdom, is an ancient desert city, home to thousands of tombs cut into sandstone mountains. At least 100 tombs have elaborate carved facades, a signature of the skilled Nabataean craftsmen.
Maestro Bocelli said performing in such a setting was a very special moment for the family and for all the musicians: “To be here creating a piece of history in such an inspirational setting so rich in human ingenuity, heritage and culture is truly a moment we will never forget”.
Maestro Bocelli will go directly from AlUla, Saudi Arabia to Genoa, Italy to record the opera Otello, by Giuseppe Verdi.
THE FRATELLIS — HALF DRUNK UNDER A FULL MOON
BACK with a head full of ideas, a belting title and an urge to party post-lockdown, The Fratellis are ready to blow away the blues. From the opening semi-nonsensical title track, with its delirious, Neil Diamond-meets-Toast of London “Yes!” chorus, to the lush closer Hello Stranger — both comfortably over the five-minute mark — the album is painted from a wider palette than ever before and is the richer for it. The latter is one of several songs to revisit the Starcrossed Losers characters from 2018’s previous album In Your Own Sweet Time, who also share the dancefloor on Strangers In The Street and the euphoric but deceptive “train wreck honeymoon” of lead single Six Days In June, one of the standout tracks among a staggeringly strong and varied set.
Living In The Dark’s chorus offers up a whiff of old-style Costello Music, while Need A Little Love and Lay Your Body Down also shine. Yes!
8/10
(Review by Tom White)
MATTHEW E WHITE & LONNIE HOLLEY — BROKEN MIRROR: A SELFIE REFLECTION
THIS collaboration between artist and musician Lonnie Holley and singersongwriter Matthew E White is like nothing else, a soundclash of free jazz, blues, funk and performance poetry.
White and his musicians improvised the tracks before they backed Holley for an unrehearsed gig, and for this recording the artist sang complete first takes to music he had never heard before. The results are fresh and spontaneous on five lengthy tracks, with the opening This Here Jungle Of Moderness/ Composition 14 immediately dragging you from your comfort zone.
The title track (Composition 9) clocks in at more than 10 minutes, as Holley examines the narcissism of pandering for social media likes. I’m Not Tripping has a minimal backing of burbling synths, and Holley’s gravelly voice dominates the final track, Get Up! Walk With Me.
7 /10
(Review by Matthew George)
CHEAP TRICK — IN ANOTHER WORLD
YOU would think that after five decades Cheap Trick would be repeating themselves.
But somehow the band, who emerged out of Rockford, Illinois, in 1973, continue to push the envelope on each album.
That being said, on their 20th studio album the four-piece are working with familiar themes.
Power pop, hard rock and edgy punk combine with their trademark court jester mentality to create 13 tracks of enjoyable music.
On Quit Waking Me Up, the band dip into ska punk, a genre thankfully not heard from much nowadays.
A cover of John Lennon’s sardonic anthem Gimme Some Truth closes the album, with added guitar solo.
Cheap Trick have already secured their place in the musical pantheon — they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016. Be glad their lust for music has not faded over time.
6/10
(Review by Alex Green)
PEGGY SEEGER — FIRST FAREWELL
ON HER 24th solo record, the grande dame of folk continues to surprise and challenge her audience.
Dandelion and Clover, the stark album opener, is breathtaking: art and folk song in one, with an elegiac simplicity so typical of the singer-songwriter you almost miss the fact she’s switched from guitar to the piano.
The more familiar jaunty-yet-acerbic Seeger returns on tracks like The Invisible Woman, a defiant lament at how ageing erases women: ‘She has plenty to say/She won’t go away/The invisible woman is here.’
She tackles social media addiction (We Are Here, featuring her son Calum MacColl) and the pathos of male suicide (Beautiful Boys). But Seeger’s social conscience is in full evidence too on songs like How I Long For Peace, which pivots around an enchanting incantatory melody.
Let’s hope this album is only the first of many farewells.
7/10
(Review by Rachel Farrow)