The ‘Classical Spectacular’ I attended was on Sunday 21st March 2010. The ticket prices were £50 and worth every penny. This review is not just historical, the Classical Spectaculars are regular events that are held at least twice a year, the next being between

18th and 21st November 2010.

What do you get for £20 to £50? Well, first of all there’s the Albert Hall. You have to be inside it, to appreciate how wonderful a building it is. Then you have the musicians: The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Choral Society, the English Concert Chorus, the Band of the Welsh Guards and Muskets and Cannons of the Moscow Militia. If that sounds good, I can assure you it is.

Classical Spectacular is a series of concerts which mixes the ‘greatest hits’ of classical music, with a ‘Last Night at the Proms’ atmosphere. Fanfare for the Common Man, the Planets Suite, Pomp and Circumstance, Jerusalem, Rule Britannia and the 1812 Overture is just a sample of the evenings music.

The dress is casual, and it’s a good time party atmosphere helped by the comedic introductions to each piece by the conductor John Rigby.

The Albert Hall website has a useful feature where you can see the view of the orchestra from the seats you choose. This eliminates a lot of the worry when visiting a new venue. Why not check it out now?

John McNally

PS. The concert also includes lasers, indoor fireworks, muskets, cannons and balloons. 

One of them had heard that the Birmingham brewery Mitchells and Butlers were looking for a band to play at their trade fairs. So they decided to call themselves the M & B Band and tried to get sponsored by the brewery.

Unfortunately the M&B Brewery changed their marketing policy, and the lads never got the sponsorship they hoped for. In the meantime however the group had played at many venues as the M&B Band, and while they wanted to change their name, they didn’t want to confuse their customers and fans.

So they decided to call themselves something beginning with M and B, and became………..the Moody Blues! 

The original five Brummie lads were Ray Thomas, Clint Warwick, Graham Edge, Mike Pinder and Denny Laine (who later joined Paul McCartney and Wings, co-writing the “Mull of Kintyre“).  Mike Pinder and Denny Laine both left early in the Moodies career, and were replaced by John Lodge and Justin Hayward.

1967 saw the Moody Blues produce their “Days of Future Passed” album together with a full classical orchestra. This album contained their biggest hit “Knights in White Satin“.

However I prefer their tribute to the late Timothy Leary ‘Legend of a Mind’, from “In Search of the Lost Chord“, 1968. This was a good showcase for Ray Thomas’s talent as a flautist.

John McNally

These articles could be classified as Product Reviews, EXCEPT you never read a bad review! After all, the blogger won’t make any money out of saying how bad something is.

What’s  worse than the blatant sales pitch, are those blogs where the reviews aren’t even personal. They are just a rehash of the products sales page, or a PLR article scattered with BUY buttons.

These Blog owners are making a fundamental error. They know that the purpose of the blog is to make money, however by FOCUSING on this aspect, their blog loses QUALITY. If the blog has no quality it will lose traffic, and ultimately lose money.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a famous book on philosophy, that sold millions of copies in the 1970’s.
The book criticises the scientific tradition of splitting the world between subject (YOU) and object (the BLOG). Instead the author advocates looking at the world as a whole, and the glue between subject and object is QUALITY.

Religious people also recognise how unsatisfactory the world is, when only perceived with a duality between subject and object. However their “glue” is called LOVE. The Beatles knew about this, but they didn’t need thousands of words to explain it, they could do it in one lyric. “All You Need is Love”.

“Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions, and right actions produces work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the centre of it all. ” Robert M. Pirsig,  ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ (1974) Bantam Books, page 267.

John McNally

The only bit’s I liked were “Are we like Sheep?” and “The Hallelujah Chorus” – but that was over an hour away.  I was having trouble keeping my eyes open, and my girlfriend was having the same problem, so in the interval we ‘did a runner’.

The Zetland Arms was just outside the church, and over a pint of delicious real ale we decided not to go back. Next pub was the Tilted Wig where we saw a football match while imbibing a lovely local brew called “The Tilted Pig” from Slaughterhouse Ales. (Their brewery is on an old abattoir site).

Before returning home we thought we would pop into the Punch Bowl for some cheap Barnsley bitter. While enjoying our pint, we heard the strains of a Christmas carol coming from the other end of the pub! When we walked over to see what was happening, we discovered a folk group and choir of about 20 people all having a great time.

It was a ‘retirement party’ that had been abandoned in December because of snow. Hence the Christmas carols in April! Everyone made us very welcome, and we were soon members of the choir singing along to the popular tunes.

THAT’S what I like about pubs……..they’re PUBLIC. Anyone can go in, and you never know who is there, or what is happening, until you go inside. The Punch Bowl  turned a disappointing Messiah into a fantastic Christmas experience!

John McNally 

With enthusiasm my hand shot up. “What can you play”? He asked, “The Banjo, Sir” ….He looked surprised…”That’s unusual, OK stand at the front of the class with the other boys.”

At this point I should explain that I had never touched a banjo in my life, and couldn’t read music. But I had watched a load of George Formby films during the summer and playing a banjo seemed really easy.  All you had to do was lean on a lamppost, smile and strum your fingers over the strings…. I knew I could do that, I just didn’t have the banjo to prove it.

I stood in front of the whole class, at the end of a line with 3 other boys. Each boy was given the opportunity to demonstrate his skills to the class. One played the piano, and the others played a guitar and then a recorder. As they played I watched my friends in the class who all had big broad grins on their faces, as they all knew I couldn’t play a thing.

When it came to me, the music teacher apologised that he didn’t have a banjo.  (Phew, I thought, that’s a relief…… because I was starting to have doubts about this).  “But I HAVE got a Ukulele which is similar”……GULP!

He handed the Ukulele to me and looked really puzzled. “Are you left handed, McNally”?…….”No Sir”…….”Well I’ve never seen anyone hold a Ukulele like that! Never mind, do you want some sheet music”?……..”No Sir”……”That’s good, play a piece you know then.”

Right this is it. I was terrified, but I was also too scared to run away!

I started to strum the ukulele just like George Formby, except this horrible cacophony of  jarred and wobbly notes came out. By this stage the class were roaring with laughter. The music teacher immediately stopped me. “You can’t play the banjo at all, can you McNally”!….”No Sir”…….”Then why did you say you could”?……..”Don’t know Sir”"………..”You’re an IDIOT McNally! …. SIT DOWN”.

Highly embarrassed I sat down, but I was known as Banjo Boy for a long time afterwards.

John McNally

In 1968 I bought my first album and it was Pink Floyd’s ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’. I played this very loud, much to the annoyance of my brother who was an Elvis fan. The next year however I “discovered” the Beatles.

During my last term at Campion High School for Boys, the English Master challenged the class to bring some modern ‘Pop Music’ to school, and convince him it was worth listening to. After school had finished about 10 of us, plus the English teacher, went to an empty classroom with a record player. 

Each boy had brought along their favourite album and was allowed to play one track for the rest of us to listen to. I was clutching Pink Floyd under my arm, but the trendiest kid in our class had brought the Beatles White Album. He played ‘Dear Prudence’ and I was transfixed by the haunting sound.

I thought that the Beatles were just a ’singles’ band who played short catchy pop tunes, but Dear Prudence opened my eyes (and ears)! My Mother bought me the White Album (mono version) that xmas, and there were more delights waiting for me;  Happiness is a Warm Gun, Helter Skelter, Blackbird, and something more weird than even Pink Floyd – Revolution No.9.

I was converted, I bought the whole of the Beatles back catalogue and have been a fan ever since. So thank you John, George, Paul and Ringo, you have given me a great deal of pleasure over the years, and I’m very grateful.

John McNally

John consulted the American psychoanalyst Arthur Janov and subjected himself to the extreme ‘Primal Scream’ therapy. Janov was a follower of Freud and Jung, believing that adult problems can be found in a child’s formative years. His therapy stripped away all the protective psychological barriers to determine where the childhood problems lay.

Once any hurt was exposed, the patient was encouraged to release the pain and frustration with a huge ‘Primal Scream’. John Lennon – Plastic Ono Band was straight from the psychiatrists couch, and Lennon released his pain, screaming through intensely personal tracks such as ‘Mother’, ‘I found Out’, ‘Working Class Hero’ and of course ’God’ where Lennon upset millions of Beatle fans……

“I don’t believe in Beatles…..I just believe in me, and Yoko, and that’s reality………..The dream is over, What can I say? The dream is over, Yesterday. I was the dreamweaver, But now I’m reborn. I was the Walrus, But now I’m John. And so dear friends, you just have to carry on………………….The dream is over…………..” God by John Lennon

It still upsets me when I hear those words, but the whole album is a musical masterpiece, a complete contrast to the much happier ‘Imagine’ and ‘Mind Games’ albums. If you have any interest in the Beatles and John Lennon, you need to hear this album – It’s a unique experience.

John McNally 
PS. If you want to know just how poignant this album is, listen to the short fade out track “My Mummy’s Dead”:

The Director Sam Taylor-Wood manages to avoid the obvious cliche of telling Lennon’s story through his and the Beatles songs, instead there is plenty of the 1950’s music that inspired the Group during their formative teenage years.

There are only two musical references that are out of sync with the period. The opening credits starts with a loud guitar chord from ‘A Hard Days Night’ and fades to the fans screams of those later years. The closing credits finish with Lennon’s track ‘Mother’ from his first solo LP, (although the version used in the film was a studio out-take).

The Mother track was the most poignant, and the lyrics are basically the films entire plot;

“Mother, you had me but I never had you.
I wanted you but you didn’t want me……..
Father, you left me but I never left you.
I needed you but you didn’t need me………”


I’m a long-time Beatle fan so I already knew the whole story, but I was reaching for the Kleenex tissues long before the end. Even if you don’t know Lennon’s background, if you like a good tear-jerker, this is the film for you.

To understand the origins of the  Beatle phenomena, you only need to watch two films; ‘Nowhere Boy’ dealing with the formative childhood years, and ‘Backbeat’ covering the Hamburg and Cavern years where the Beatles honed their stagecraft. Both films are historically accurate, but more importantly great entertainment as well.

John McNally

I have all Pink Floyd’s albums on vinyl, but unfortunately I no longer play vinyl records, which meant I had to replace them with CDs. (What a great thing new formats are for record companies, they keep reselling the same music, to the same customers, but in a different form)!

When I looked at the Final Cut CD my heart sank. There was an extra track. Record companies often try to ‘add value’ to a CD reissue by including extra tracks, which are usually inferior demo’s or studio out-takes.

The reason my heart sank, is that this extra track had been placed in the middle of the original song sequence. In fact it had been inserted as the fourth song, which would obviously completely change my listening experience. It would certainly destroy my memory of the original album.

I still bought the CD but it was with some trepidation that I played it….Then, joy of joys! It was a fantastic track!! In fact I think it is the best thing on the album, and I just wondered why it hadn’t been included on the vinyl version?

The song is called “When the Tigers Broke Free”, and is an account of how Roger Water’s father died at the Battle of Anzio, during the Second World War. A British infantry company were ordered to fight, and delay the advance of a German Tiger tank division, with the inevitable consequence.

Roger Waters wrote the song after clearing his Mothers house and finding an old shoe box packed with photos of his dad, military medals, and a telegram from the King reporting his death. 

As Roger Waters wrote …”and it makes my eyes go dim, to remember that his Majesty had signed, with his own RUBBER STAMP”!

John McNally

This has thankfully changed! For the past 12 months Leamington Spa has a brand new live music venue called the Assembly. Although the venue is new, the building is not – it’s a beautiful 1926 Art Deco construction that has been lovingly restored by its new owners.

The theme of the interior design has been taken from the statue of a lady that has stood on top of the building since the 1920’s. When I talk about this to other Leamington residents, many of them are not aware of the statue. The Assembly is in a narrow road, and to see the statue you have to crane your neck back.

I have always been a star gazer, so looking up comes naturally to me. Since childhood I have been fascinated by the Assembly statue. I used to go to Saturday Morning pictures at the nearby Clifton Cinema, Spencer Street, in the 1960’s.

I spent my 1/6 pocket money (7.5 new pence) on sixpence for the bus fare, sixpence for the cinema, and sixpence for a bag of monkey nuts. When I was eating the monkey nuts I always gazed up with admiration at the statue on top of the Assembly.

The recent renovation designed by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, has the statue featured in the carpets, the wallpaper and in stained glass windows. The result is probably the best 1,000 capacity, live music venue, in the UK.

John McNally