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Twice Upon A
Twilight … Thirty years after they split, Australian pop legends The Twilights have reunited for two special Beatles tribute concerts called “All
You Need Is … Beatles”, held at the Adelaide Festival Theatre on Saturday 4
November, 2000. The band performed two shows (3pm and 8pm), accompanied by
the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra conducted by David
(“Journey To The Centre Of The Earth”) Measham, with guests Ross Wilson and Doc Neeson. The reunion is major news for fans of the group and for Oz music enthusiasts
generally, with The Twilights being the last of “big three” Australian bands
of the 60s (with The Easybeats and The Masters Apprentices) to reform. The
Adelaide concerts mark the first time the original members of the group –
co-lead singers Glenn Shorrock and Paddy McCartney, guitarists Peter Brideoake and Terry Britten and bassist John Bywaters – have played
together in public since the band broke up in early 1969; the only absentee
is drummer Laurie Pryor, who joined the band shortly after their
first recordings. Their mystique has not diminished with time, burnished by the later
successes of Glenn Shorrock with LRB and Terry Britten as a leading freelance
producer and songwriter. Songs like Cathy Come Home, Needle In A
Haystack, What’s Wrong With The Way I Live and 9:50 are rightly
hailed as classics of the era, their original albums and singles are highly
prized on the collectors’ market, and they have a considerable following in
Japan and other countries through their recordings. In their heyday in 1965-66, the Easybeats and Normie Rowe were the
only serious rivals to The Twilights’, whose massive popularity was crowned
by their win in the inaugural Hoadley’s Battle of the Sounds in 1966. They were renowned for their dynamic showmanship and their
live prowess, and it’s appropriate that they have reunited for a concert of
Beatles music. The group members were mostly children of English immigrant
families and they made no secret of their adoration of the Fab Four. The
Twilights were famed for their note-perfect performances of Beatles songs,
they recorded their classic version of The Hollies’ What’s Wrong With The
Way I Live at Abbey Rd Studios with former Beatles engineer Norman
“Hurricane” Smith, and on their return from the UK in 1967 they wowed local
audiences with their complete live renditions of the then-unreleased Sgt Pepper’s
Lonely Hearts Club Band. |
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For more on the Twilights reunion, go to: Steve Hogan’s concert review
“Beatles bring new dawn to
Twilights”
(Adelaide Advertiser, 1 November 2000) “Fab memories”
(Adelaide Advertiser, 6 November 2000) |