06 May 2016 (gig)
12 May 2016
It's Donovan's 70th birthday party and we are all invited. Donovan arrived on the scene in late 1964 as a wannabe Dylanesq folk troubador combining folk, poetry and bohemian chick, but the times were indeed changing and by late 1965 Don was producing the albums Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow, bona fide psych masterpieces.
Donovan bounces on stage looking well for his 70 years with a stripped down band of drums, double bass and his original aranger John Cameron on piano. Jaunty sing-a-long 'First there is a mountain' opens proccedings followed all his classic hits such as 'Catch the wind', 'Jenifer Jupiter', 'Barabagical', 'Sunny Goodge street', 'Young girl blues' and 'Colours'.
Donovan is a marvellous racontour between songs, telling tales of hitch-hiking around Great Britain with his cohort 'Gypsy Dave', Donovan singing songs and reciting poetry, Gyp telling fortunes, both smoking copious amounts of hash! In fact Don and Gyp were hitch-hiking around the islands of Greece searching for the 'answer' when word came "Return immediately, Sunshine Superman #1 in America"!! Tales of playing package tours with The Walker Bros, The Hollies and The Who, of screaming girls and being fired upon with water pistols by Pete Townsend and Roger Daltry in the orchestra pit whilst Donovan was singing.
With such a large back catalogue there were always gonna be disappointments. Because of the stripped down nature, few of his more lavish psych classics were included. He would need full orchestras, sitars, tablas and the like for that.
Sadly, talk of special guests never materialised, no Jimmy Page to bring it home on 'Sunshine Superman' and no Macca to share vocal duties on 'Atlantis'. An encore of 'Mellow Yellow' sent the crowd home singing and happy. "They call me mellow yellow, quiet rightly".
