REVIEW: Superb celebration of the genius of George Harrison

An evening in the company of the All Things Must Pass Orchestra will always be a highlight of any year, but this year – the year George Harrison would have turned 80 – added huge extra poignancy to tonight.

The ten-piece band, celebrating their tenth anniversary, are the perfect reminder of the genius of Harrison, the under-sung Beatle, the man who exploded post-Beatles with the masterpiece triple album All Things Must Pass. A huge Harrison landmark, it’s also a personal favourite for band leader Alex Eberhard (guitar, main vocals) – and tonight’s set, just as the band usually does, delved deep into its treasures with superb recreations of Let It Down, Run of the Mill and Beware of Darkness, plus Imogen Ryall taking on vocals for the sublime What Is Life. Wah-Wah was another highlight, and the night concluded with an exquisite My Sweet Lord.

But the set ranged as far pre-All Things Must Pass as it did post, going right up to Harrison’s final album and right back to his first Beatles album track, Don’t Bother Me, with Dave Barnard taking over vocals – a song which summed up precisely what the band gets so right. They are absolutely authentic in their sound, with Alex Eberhard’s vocals uncannily close to Harrison’s own – but crucially, this isn’t mere tribute. They capture the spirit and they add some of their own. Don’t Bother Me with trombone and sax. Who would have thought of that?

A big part of the repertoire are numbers that the band absolutely has to do, but they have also got the courage to mine some (relative) obscurities and even oddities. The night featured a cracking rendition of the seemingly unrecreatable Within You Without You. But inevitably it’s the big ones that you take home. Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth) and All Things Must Pass, the track that gave the band its name, were outstanding, but the showstealers this evening were a gorgeous Something and an awesome While My Guitar.

The band is a ten piece. It takes quite something to get them together, and that’s why we get them only once a year. Of course, it would be fab to be see them far more frequently, but it does at least mean that we already know what one of the highlights of 2024 is going to be.

The orchestra are: Alex Eberhard (guitar, main vocals, band leader), Lucy Pickering (vocals), Imogen Ryall (vocals), Tony Williams (guitar), Bernd Rest (guitar), Simon Robinson (keyboards), Dave Barnard (bass guitar, backing vocals), ​Tom Arnold (drums), Paul Nieman (trombone), Philippe Guyard (saxophone).