Saturday, January 10, 2009

Victor Spinetti: A Very Private Diary

Victor Spinetti: A Very Private Diary
The New York Public Library For The Performing Arts
At The Bruno Walter Auditorium
Saturday, Jan. 10th, 2009
Antonio G. Pereira © 2009 Antonio G. Pereira
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He remembers
What it was like
To be at the center
Of an exploding creative
Revolution
At a time
When Compassion
And Humanity
Were expressions of Reality
And not Slogans
For the next Publicity Campaign

This son of Wales
With the ever flickering
Glint of fire
In his eyes
Whose soul burns brightly
With memories
As he tells his tales
Each precious story
To the audience
And we are grateful
For his gift
As time stands still
For a moment
In wonderous smiles of admiration and adoration

Friday, January 2, 2009

Eight Days A Week: Inside The Beatles' Final World Tour

Eight Days A Week: Inside The Beatles' Final World Tour
Antonio G. Pereira © 2009 Antonio G. Pereira
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Eight Days A Week: Inside The Beatles' Final World Tour, by photographer Bob Whitaker with Marcus Hearn (Published by Metro Books) , is a photographic record of the Beatles 1966 World Tour; that took them through concerts in Germany, Japan and the Philippines.

Bob Whitaker, an Australian photographer, was hired by Beatles' manager Brian Epstein, to be their official photographer, during their 1964 concert tour of Australia.

The collection of photographs here, are quite stunning to look at, as they capture the Beatles traveling en route, in hotel, backstage and during performance. (Note that Bob Whitaker's previous book, The Unseen Beatles {Published in 1991 by Collins Publications - A division of Harper-Collins}, contained another collection of Beatles photographs, including a few from this one. And in 1986, JAM Publishing in Japan, released a beautiful collection titled, The Beatles In Tokyo, of all of the photographs of the Beatles' stay in Japan in 1966, taken by Bob Whitaker; that included photos of their arrival, hotel stay {including a gorgeous fold-out reproduction of the painting that all four Beatles collaborated on together} and in concert.)

The book, which begins with their concert tour in Germany of Munich, Essen and Hamburg, goes on to their stopover in Anchorage, Alaska (due to a Typhoon warning), before going to Japan and the concerts there, another stopover in Hong Kong ( where the Beatles had previously played in 1964, with Jimmy Nichol on drums substituting for an ailing Ringo) to change planes, and finally the Philippines; which ended the tour with the two largest concerts they ever performed, and a very disturbing turn of events with the Marcos Government.

Eight Days A Week is quite a collection. Colour and black and white photographs, in a sizeable book, beautifully bound in Singapore. The photographs, very easy to look at, and the accompanying text, very easy to read. Well done and highly recommended!