Silver Laughter 1976: Ken, Paul, Mick and Jon
“Beatles Tribute #1 – Calgary, July 1977”
Click on the link above to hear the entire set which is over 1 hour long. I believe this was recorded the last night we were at the Tradewinds in Calgary, Alberta. I had some reservations about posting the whole thing, but I wanted the opportunity to put the segments of songs I have been putting up into context.Besides, it has been slimmed down to an MP3 format, so the quality is not as good as the original recording.
We wrote the introduction, and usually either Jon or Ken would say it before we launched into the set. But this particular time, we all decided to do it, probably because we had heard it so many times over the years of performing the tributes we knew it by heart.
When you hear the actual Beatles voices, that is when we took the opportunity to change instruments. The first switch takes Jon from 6 string to 12 string, the second (I’m pretty sure) from 12 string back to 6. The third (I think) is where Ken puts his guitar down, dons my bass and I move over to piano. The last one we switch back to our original instruments to finish the set.
We were called back for several encores which gave us a chance to play a couple of our originals from both albums. The second album was not completed at the time of this recording. The lineup of musicians was that same as the 1976 photo: Ken, Paul, Mick and Jon.
Follow up note: Even though I was one of the musicians on the recording, I still can’t believe all the work that went into these songs. There is an occasional blip and miscue, but for the most part, it is an exceptional piece of work from beginning to end. Silver Laughter was really on top of their game from playing continuously night after night for the 5 plus years I was with the band. Just imagine after this recording in July of 1977 that we got even better over the next two years until our breakup in 1979.
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