There was a cornucopia of excellent Thursday shows, and all but one of the shows I caught had good crowds.
I try to never miss a show from Canadian classic rockers Prism, even though they only have one original member left— frontman/ lead guitarist Al Harlow.
I’m glad I caught the first part of his April 19 show at Average Joes this time because they came out “Flying” with two of their biggest hits.
A countdown blared over the s
peakers to kick off the show as a grinning Harlow , clad in a zebra print suit and sunglasses blasted into their biggest hit “Spaceship Superstar.”
While Harlow started out as the band’s bass player in the beginning, he had a hand in writing the lyrics, melodies and guitar parts as well, and displayed his prowess on all three of those. He can still hit those adenoidal high notes and can still nail a tasteful guitar solo, not to mention do a credible Pete Townshend windmill.
He was totally on home on the stage, cracking jokes and telling stories. His band added vocal harmonies and kept a good sized crowd’s attention.
An excellent version of another of my favourites “Flying,” was next.
There were still immersed in the hits for this show, playing “Virginia,” then added an exotic new song “Tangiers,” off their latest CD “Big Black Sky.”
But it was back to the hits as they followed it with “Cover Girl,” a song Prism wrote for Dorothy Stratten, a playboy centrefold and actress they once knew who died at the hands of an abusive husband. The band pretty much fell apart on the song, but one time tempo change and a guitar break later, they pulled it back.
They had it together again on “Don’t You Let Him Know,” which Harlow punctuated with a tasteful guitar solo.
it was the solo part of the show after that with a drum solo which kicked off another favourite “See Forever Eyes.”
They finished off with a note perfect rendition of one of my favourite keyboard solos. Then it was time for Harlow to switch guitar and show his stuff on slide.
He ripped out some gritty blues, jumped into the crowd, grabbed a beer bottle off one of the tables, played another solo without spilling a drop and returned it to its owner before leaping back on stage with the agility of a man half his age.
The band returned and they crashed into “Young and Restless,” another early ’80s hit.
