Alastair Kiernan

November 6^th 2010
HX 1

Alastair returned to us after an absence of four years, has it really been that long? He opened his program on his set up of a Yamaha HX1 and Tyros 2 with That's Entertainment, Make Them Laugh and There's No Business Like Show business.

Some clever camera work by both Alan Scanes and Doreen made it look as if Alastair's hands were coming out of the flame bowls on the stage!

After that lively opening it was time to slow things down a bit with Gabriel's Oboe, this was chosen as the 23rd best film score in American Cinema and was also used during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, all set to a nice blue/lilacy background by Keith, our supreme lighting maestro on concert nights.

Little Red Monkey, played as a march, was set against a red backdrop was one of the football themes and was swiftly followed by Out Of The Blue, but no football connection this time. Next we had a medley of tunes with Zing Went The Strings Of My Heart, Why Do I Love You?, Two Little Words, I Can Dream Can't I and Dream.

Alastair mentioned that he had watched Mary Poppins with his children before coming to Basildon and they had asked him to play a medley, he duly obliged with Supercallifragilistic, Chim Chim Cheeree, A Teaspoon Of Sugar Helps The Medicine Go Down and last but not least Feed The Birds, all enhanced by lots of tiny red and green dots backstage.

Then it was back to the theatre with Walking Out With My Baby, Let Yourself Go and Putting On The Ritz. You could have thought you were watching Strictly Come Dancing as we had the Charleston with close up shots of Alastair's "waterfalling", hands going from upper to lower keyboard in very rapid succession!

Next we heard a lovely rendition of Gira Con Me by American singer/songwriter Joshua Winslow "Josh" Groban. This Alastair followed with a French selection which featured amongst others Under The Bridges Of Paris, I Love Paris In The Springtime and a short version of the Can Can. Time for a break, refreshments and the raffle.

Having changed into a white tuxedo, Alastair opened the 2nd half of the concert with a selection of marches before delighting us with Sway and Besame Mucho. Our audiences still enjoy a bit of a sing along at times and were treated to I Do I Do I Do, Painted Doll, The Sunshine Of Your Smile, The Sun Has Got Its Hat On and Bring Me Sunshine with Keith displaying a multicoloured/shaped kaleidoscope in the background.

Another piece of music which we don't hear very often is The Secret Garden; then we had Dizzy Fingers and Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear To Tread. After that Alastair took us to Ireland to where the grass is always green, or so we are told!, with March Hare, Mountains of Mourne, the lyrics of which were written way back in 1896, Irish Eyes Are Smiling and the ever popular Danny boy. Speeding up the tempo once again it was time to bring the evening to an end with the Thunder & Lightning Polka.

Well, when Alastair comes to the club, there is very little chat but an awful lot of music, it was no different this time, so many thanks Alastair for a very entertaining evening. Nice to have his Mum and uncle with us as well.

Alastair's encore came with some music from the Shadows in the shape of Telstar.