Barry Gibb Mythology Tour Thread (Bee Gees)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by belushipower, Feb 11, 2013.

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  1. belushipower

    belushipower Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Since Barry Gibb has just started his Mythology tour in Sydney last Friday night I thought it would be good to give it a dedicated thread. I went to the show and loved it so much I have written a review (I'm a songwriter so excuse any floral~ities!).
     
    Volt-and-Volume likes this.
  2. belushipower

    belushipower Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Barry Gibb Mythology
    Sydney Entertainment Centre
    Friday 8th February 2013

    I kept having visions of our seats and being disappointed. The tickets very loudly stated SIDE VIEWING so I kept imagining that I would have this huge speaker stack between me and Barry and I’d have to crane my neck just to see the tip of his nose. So I was relieved when our seats had us on the left-hand side looking down onto the stage. I couldn’t make out the Guild logo on Barry’s headstock but was close enough to know we were in for a treat.

    I knew the concert was about to start when around thirty to forty people ~ young and old ~ came out from behind the stage and took up their seats in front of the stage. Amongst them, Barry’s nephews and nieces. With his elder sister Lesley living in the nearby Blue Mountains I often think about all these Gibb kids running around Sydney and here it was in one backstage~passed conga line to see Uncle Barry.

    The lights dim and the first show of Barry Gibb’s Mythology tour starts in the town where it pretty much all began. We get treated to the Technicolour Dreams film clip up on the three big screens and then the band make their way up the stairs leaving Barry waiting with his flowing silver locks (!). I’ve never seen a sixty~six year old swagger before but he saunters on stage like he’s thirty again, picks up his trademark blue guitar and launches into the opening choo~choo of Jive Talkin’. The sound was a mess but after a couple of minutes the technicians had that sorted and, to these ears, there wasn’t a sound problem the whole night (except I couldn’t hear any bass but that was probably due to where we were sitting).

    What follows exceeded my expectations. Being Barry Gibb I knew his concert would be incredible but I didn’t expect it to be the best concert I have ever been to. Is it too early, or too late, to sprout such accolades?

    Second song in and we’re treated to Lonely Days, sounding big and punchy with the crowd clapping along with those drums. To Love Somebody, soulful enough, gets an even earthier arrangement with a slowed down intro and gospel backing vocals. Barry introduces Maurice’s daughter Sam to the stage and they tackle the sublime How Can You Mend A Broken Heart? There’s a surprise when he plays the Peggy Lee hit Fever but all makes sense when it morphs into Stayin’ Alive and back again.

    An even bigger surprise is when Barry introduces his son Stephen to sing a tribute to Maurice with an obscure b~side of Mo’s called On Time ~ one of my favourite Bee Gees songs! As Stephen is obviously a hard~rocker (check shirt, biker beard, lots of tats including HELL on his knuckles) this song suits him to a tee with it’s chunky riff, early 70s canned heat lyrics and man does he nails the solo.

    Barry talks about “the bands from the 60s we liked, the Hollies and the Fortunes, bands you would have forgotten…and then there was the Beatles.” The audience cheers. Barry continues, “So I’d like to dedicate this next one to my favourite songwriter of all time…Paul McCartney.” And, with his inimitable strumming, launches into The Long And Winding Road. Too much heaven! Barry does Macca, and how. Sounds like a Bee Gees tune somewhere around Trafalgar.

    Not only do we get Gotta Get A Message To You but it’s followed by Kilburn Towers. Would never have picked that one. What a treat! And it’s dedicated to his sister Lesley “who is somewhere out there (in the crowd).”

    “It’s great to be back home,” says Barry to the cheer of the crowd. Even though he’ll be saying the same line in Brisbane, Manchester and Miami it doesn’t matter as it was here in Sydney the Bee Gees learnt their chops, recording at the back of a butcher’s shop in suburban Hurstville. “We recorded all these songs with the smell of steak wafting into the studio” he says and, sounding a bit embarrassed, plays a couple of songs from “our Australian records”. I would never have expected to hear Playdown from 1966 but here it is complete with eleven piece backing band. The big local hit Spicks and Specks gets a roaring reaction with 13,000 Sydneysiders singing along.

    The 60s era just keep on giving and Horizontal album track With The Sun In My Eyes sounding majestic in it’s simplicity as is the next one In the Morning. Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You is another highlight (okay, the whole show was a highlight) with Stephen tackling the ‘Oh solo Dominique’ vocal part looking and sounding like a transfixed tough monk. The band consisted of a drummer, percussionist, 5-string bassist, four guitarists (including Barry and Stephen), two keyboardists and three backing vocalists made some songs loud and punchy and others quiet and melancholic. An exceptional munch of musicians who reminded me of the backing band behind Brian Wilson when I saw him do Pet Sounds around ten years ago. Anonymous yet young and vital. Conservative with nothing experimental and leftfield in the playing, those attributes are left to the actual songs. Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You? Out there!

    And then we get I Started A Joke. Barry says, “Here’s a special one for the Gibb family” and starts singing the first verse of this classic Robin Gibb tune. Suddenly, Robin’s voice appears Loud as if coming down from the sky and footage of him singing it appears on the big screens and we’re treated to a living wake with one of the most beautiful voices. When it ends, started by tearful Gibb family in the audience, the entire crowd is up on their feet and giving Robin a standing ovation that goes on for a couple of minutes. This seemed to have surprised Barry who looks completely overwhelmed by this reaction. An experience I will never forget.

    Backing singer Beth Cohen comes down and sings Islands In The Stream and Guilty with Barry (“Oh the stories I could tell you about Barbra!” says Barry) and then he dedicates Words to the extended Gibb family. Ever the sentimentalist, “I love you Lynda” in handwriting is projected on the big screen. “Now we’re going to enter into that zone,” he says and the band ~ with Sam Gibb on lead vocals ~ launches into If I can’t Have You and a medley of Fever hits. Funny that in the late 70s (and on the live double and box set) the Bee Gees would do a medley of the 6os hits and he is now doing a medley of the 70s hits.

    With photo and video montage behind him of his three brothers, Barry talks about each of them and what they meant to him with the crowd cheering each one. A living wake indeed.

    “How on earth is he going to end this concert?” I thought. “What biggie does he have left?” Barry takes the opposite tack and they play the only songs from the 80s (none from the 90s) with Ordinary Lives (“another one for the Gibb family”) and ends with Immortality (“the last great song that Robin, Mo and I wrote together”).

    Barry says goodbye and swaggers offstage while the band play an elevator version of Massachusetts. The entire crowd are on their feet again cheering on a man who put out his soul on the stage that night with nearly fifty years worth of songs to chose from. They all come back again for one more and you know which one it’s going to be with that massive mirror ball hanging above the crowd and they do the perfunctory Staying Alive and then it’s over for good.

    We all have songs you wished he’d have played, mine being Run To Me and Mr Natural (oh okay, and Birdie Told Me!) but the one biggie that was missing was New York Mining Disaster 1941. I know he can’t play everything but thought it odd this one was missing. The other curiosity to me was there were no amplifiers on the stage. Not that I could see anyway. It has been awhile since I went to a big concert, the last being the Bee Gees One Night Stand at the Olympic Stadium in 1999 and we were so far back I can’t remember what I saw!

    I can’t imagine how this Mythology tour would have been done if Robin were still alive or how it would have been billed. Or if they would have attempted to go out at all. Barry and Robin Gibb’s Mythology Tour? Certainly not billed as the Bee Gees. It really was Barry’s tribute to his brothers and the band he formed fifty years ago. It really was a Living Wake.

    Setlist:

    Jive Talkin’
    Lonely Days
    You Should Be Dancing
    First Of May
    To Love Somebody
    How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?
    Fever/Stayin’ Alive/Fever
    How Deep Is Your Love
    On Time
    The Long and Winding Road
    Gotta Get A Message To You
    Kilburn Towers
    Playdown
    Spicks and Specks
    With The Sun In My Eyes
    In The Morning (of my life)
    Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You
    I Started A Joke
    Islands In the Stream
    Guilty
    Words
    If I Can’t Have You
    Night Fever/More Than A Woman
    Ordinary Lives
    Immortality
    (Massachusetts)
    ~
    Stayin’ Alive
     
    athensdrums, Mal, JeffMo and 13 others like this.
  3. belushipower

    belushipower Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Barry Gibb Friday 8th February 2013 Sydney
     

    Attached Files:

  4. rstamberg

    rstamberg Senior Member

    Location:
    Riverside, CT
    I didn't even know he was touring.
     
  5. bRETT

    bRETT Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston MA

    Good Lord! I would pay big money to hear this sequence alone.
     
    JeffMo and theMess like this.
  6. Cloudbuster

    Cloudbuster Forum Resident

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    Glad you had a great time and thanks for sharing.
    Just to correct you though, Immortality was from the 90s.
     
  7. Cloudbuster

    Cloudbuster Forum Resident

    Location:
    United Kingdom
  8. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    Any plans to play in the US? I'd love to see him.
     
    YeahBarry likes this.
  9. belushipower

    belushipower Forum Resident Thread Starter

    This is the first show of a world tour so he may get to your area. I only know of these 4 or 5 Australian dates.

    There was talk that they were filming the Feb 8 show for a DVD. Pretty confident band ~ releasing the first show!
     
  10. greelywinger

    greelywinger Osmondia

    Location:
    Dayton, Ohio USA
    I'll 2nd that.

    Darryl
     
  11. tages

    tages Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Belushipower - your text choked me up several times. I can't thank you enough for posting it.

    Barry Gibb is my favourite songwriter ever (along with HIS favourite - McCartney) and the thought of getting to witness what you described puts goose pimples on my goose pimples.

    Just hearing him sing "The Long And Windng Road" alone (which is The Beatles doing a song Barry forgot he wrote) would absolutely destroy me - especially in the context of him being the last Gibb-man standing.

    I would give ANYTHING to see this show.
     
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  12. MaximilianRG

    MaximilianRG Forum Resident

    Thank you so much for writing this for us. It was a pleasure to read. That playlist is amazing! I really hope he comes to the US. The Bee Gees are one of my top favorite groups, and my favorite album of all time is Horizontal. I never got to see them live. It would be a dream come true to see Barry Gibb live.
     
  13. GLUDFSSR

    GLUDFSSR Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Great setlist. I would consider seeing this show depending on the venue. I was lucky enough to see The Bee-Gee's at Dodger Stadium for the Spirits Having Flown Tour.
     
  14. rstamberg

    rstamberg Senior Member

    Location:
    Riverside, CT
    This is such a surprise to me.

    I wonder if this means Barry's going to resume recording eventually as well.

    I really thought he'd retire for real after losing Robin last year.

    Great news. Keep going!
     
  15. YeahBarry

    YeahBarry New Member

    Gotta keep posted on the tour to hopefully the US!
     
  16. belushipower

    belushipower Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Dreams do come true. I put my review up on my facebook page, an online magazine reviewed it and in return I'm getting a ticket to his last Australian show on the 27th February! I kept saying I wanted to go by couldn't justify ~ financially ~ going to the second show.
    Here is the above review but with spelling mistakes fixed and corrections.

    http://www.themusicnetwork.com/reviews/live/2013/02/12/live-review-barry-gibb/
     
    Mal, rockinlazys and DJ WILBUR like this.
  17. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    I sincerely appreciate your review. The Bee Gees are my favorite band and I was a big fan starting with Main Course, then went backwards until Children of the World came out, and then went on the wild ride when they went huge. Was proud I was a fan before Fever, and I bought that album right when it came out, before it became a hit. Was fun to discover those songs before they were played on the radio. Have all of their solo stuff as well. Was at the Vegas One Night Only concert when it was filmed. We went to the pre show dinner for fans.... we were supposed to meet them but they were delayed in the sound check, but we met Bev, his publicist, and his daughter Allie. A fun night I will never forget. I also saw them in CA for the One for All tour....now that was an amazing concert...was in support of the One album, which is terrific. Sad we won't see them together again. If he comes to Colorado, I will see him! Thank you again for telling us about this.
     
  18. DJ WILBUR

    DJ WILBUR The Cappuccino Kid

    a great read, sounds like a wonderful time..i do hope i get to see this show, sounds incredible.
     
  19. belushipower

    belushipower Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Reviews of the Melbourne show (Rod Laver Arena, February 12) :
    http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/barry-gibb-20130213-2ebl8.html
    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/enterta...sold-out-concert/story-e6frf9hf-1226576567788

    Next shows:
    Saturday 16th February Brisbane
    Tuesday 19th February Brisbane
    Wednesday 27th February Sydney

    Tomorrow (Thursday) Barry unveils a statue of the Bee Gees in their first port of call in Australia in the Brisbane suburb of Redcliffe. Bee Gees~mania has hit Brisbane with a colour liftout of the band included in the local newspaper and lots of TV and print coverage. Like this one: Barry Gibb's sister Lesley Evans visits old family home in Scarborough
    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/enterta...sold-out-concert/story-e6frf9hf-1226576567788
     

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  20. Ricko

    Ricko Forum Resident

  21. raphph

    raphph Taking a trip on an ocean liner…

    Location:
    London
    I live in London and flew across the world to Australia for the first time just to see the Sydney show! Absolutely brilliant! My only regrets were he didn't sing Emotion or Subway from Children Of The World.

    Check out my attached photo of the gig! I had good seats.

    http://instagram.com/p/VfdSzIryZS/

    I feel very fortunate. In the last 12 months I have seen a Beatle (Macca), The Stones, The Beach Boys (at Royal Albert Hall) and a Bee Gee in concert!
     
    theMess likes this.
  22. belushipower

    belushipower Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Wow, you sure did have a good seat! Hope you enjoyed your stay in Sydney.
     
  23. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    So how is Barry's voice these days. Wasn't he having problems with it?
     
  24. raphph

    raphph Taking a trip on an ocean liner…

    Location:
    London
    I would say that compared to McCartney, Wilson and Jagger, his voice sounds the most like his heyday. Could hit the high notes too! Even made a joke about it.
     
    zebop and theMess like this.
  25. belushipower

    belushipower Forum Resident Thread Starter

    It certainly is the Mythology Tour! Yesterday Barry, with his sister Lesley, in front of family (including his mum and Mo's wife Yvonne) and thousands of people unveiled the Bee Gees statue in Redcliffe. He says he is going to visit the first hall they played in, the speedway and State school. Memory Tour! Worth checking out the 14 minute long version that Motygibb put up. Barry says some great things about growing up in the late 50s.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-...to-unveil-bee-gees-statue/4519724?section=qld

    long version of unveiling:

    edited version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ltlt2CFOuIE

    120149-barry-gibb-at-the-bee-gees-way-and-statue-unveiling-.jpg
     
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