On This Day 04/01/1976 Procol Harum

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On this day, 4 Jan 1976, progressive rock band Procol Harum played Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre, supported by Viv Stanshall's Vivarium.
Best-known for their recording "A Whiter Shade of Pale" is was the 1967 hit single and one of the few singles to have sold over 10 million copies.

Touring to support Procol's Ninth (their eighth studio album, ninth including Live) that was released in September 1975.

Procol's Ninth was the first release from the band to feature non-original songs: a remake of The Beatles' "Eight Days a Week" and Leiber & Stoller's own "I Keep Forgetting". "Eight Days a Week" was put on the album by the producers, initially against the band's wishes. The album also featured "Pandora's Box", a track that had been composed by Gary Brooker and Keith Reid early in the band's career.

Cash Box said of "Pandora's Box" that "we guarantee you’ll be humming this Procol heavy night and day by the time Halloween rears its head a few weeks from now." As included on Ninth, it differed substantially from the more psychedelic unfinished version of the song that was ultimately released as a bonus track on the 2009 reissue of the band's first album.

Produced by renowned songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Procol's Ninth featured a slightly different direction with a much more stark sound than previous more elaborate productions. According to an interview with guitarist Mick Grabham, conducted by Roland Clare for the 2009 reissue, Leiber and Stoller focused less on the production sound and more on "the structure of the songs".

On This Day 18/02/1977 Procul Harum

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On this day, 18 February 1977, rock band Procul Harum played Cardiff University.

Formed in 1967. Their best-known recording is the 1967 hit single "A Whiter Shade of Pale", one of the few singles to have sold over 10 million copies.

Although noted for their baroque and classical influence, Procol Harum's music is described as psychedelic rock and proto-prog with hints of the blues, R&B, and soul.

Guy Stevens their manager, named the band after a Burmese cat, which had been bred by Eleonore Vogt-Chapman and belonged to Liz Coombes. The cat's "cat fancy" name was Procul Harun, Procul being the breeder's prefix.

In the absence of a definitive origin, the band's name has attracted various interpretations, being said to be (incorrect) Latin for "beyond these things"; the correct Latin would be procul hīs.

Band member Keith Reid describes how the name came about:

It's the name of a cat, a Siamese cat. It's the pedigree name, and it belonged to a friend of ours, just somebody that we used to hang out with when we were forming the band. One day, somebody pulled out the cat's birth certificate and said 'Have a look at this', and the name of the cat was Procol Harum. And somebody else, in fact a chap called Guy Stevens who was quite instrumental in Gary [Brooker, the singer and pianist] and myself getting together in the first place, said, 'Oh, you must call the group Procol Harum'. And we just accepted that. We never even questioned it, never even thought if it was a good name, we just went ahead with that suggestion.

Once we put the record out, people started to say, 'Oh, it's Latin, and it means 'beyond these things'. But in fact, we had spelled it incorrectly. It should have been P-R-U-C-U-L, I think, or P-R-U-C-O-L H-A-R-U-M. I believe that's right anyway. If we'd spelled it correctly; it would have meant beyond these things. But it seemed quite apt. That was it really. It was the suggestion of a friend and we just stuck with it.

Tour Setlist

Something Magic

Conquistador

Beyond the Pale

Grand Hotel

Strangers in Space

The Mark of the Claw

Nothing but the Truth

The Worm and the Tree

Pandora's Box

The Unquiet Zone

A Salty Dog

Wizard Man

This Old Dog

Willie and the Hand Jive

(Johnny Otis cover)

Not Fade Away

(The Crickets cover) (GB on guitar)

Sea of Heartbreak

(Don Gibson cover)

A Whiter Shade of Pale