Monday 11 March 2013

Guest Blogger: Angelo Noto Campanella

Photographer, Writer, and now I'm Blogging? or Ramblings of an Old kid.




First of all I'd just like to say how honored and priveleged I feel to have been asked to be a guest blogger for Classic Albums Live.
Just like ya here on some radio stations "The hits just keep on comin"

I thank the music gods for Cal.  Little did I realize how my life was gonna change after going to see my first classic albums live show at Zooz/Safari Niagara.  After some exhaustive research, going through hundreds of photographs, I found out that my very first cal show was the Bob Marley "Legend" album  September 3rd 2004.  I was immediately hooked and had to see more.  From 2005 to 2009 I went to every single show at ZooZ and also shows at the Phoenix and other venues across Ontario.

The very first album I ever bought, with money I got for my birthday at 8yrs old, was the Beatles "Rubber Soul" album.  When I turned 9yrs old I got a paper route and did some grass cutting and bought myself a transistor radio, which I immediately duct taped to the handle bars of my CCM mustang bicycle.  The late 60's and all of the 70's was a magical time for music, it seemed like there was a new sound coming out every other month.  When I first heard Pink Floyd live in '75 do DSOTM @ Ivor Wynn stadium, my mind was just blown.  I initially thought it was '74 but Rob Philips immediately corrected my error in time and then stated "well I guess it's like Woodstock, if you remember it, you weren't there.  LOL".  Thanx Rob.  I went to many concerts then and saw all the great rock bands of the day, I even had a ticket to see Led Zeppelin but the show was cancelled due to some car accident Robert Plant got into.  Don Mclean did a song called "Bye Bye Miss American Pie", in it he mentions the day the music died, which for him was when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Vallens and the Big Bopper died in that plane crash, for me the music died when John Bonham choked on his own vomit and Led Zeppelin disbanded.  After that I kinda lost interest in music.  I still liked music but I didn't really pay that much attention.  I went to a few concerts here and there; I got to see Robert Plant at Maple Leaf Gardens with Phil Collins on drums which was pretty cool.

Classic albums live got me interested in music again.  I was always shooting photographs, so I started shooting cal.  I soon discovered that music photography was an art form I should study.  I learned that you can't dance and shoot at the same time, and shooting with film was costing me a fortune, so I finally went to a cheap digital camera.  I then learned that dancing and shooting with a cheap digital camera wasn't good either, it takes me a while to learn lessons.  So I ended up with a lot of blurry pic's and video clips, but occasionally got a good shot or two.  Luckily, depending on how ya look at it, I'm sometimes clumsy and ended up breaking the digital camera's.  They aren't very shock resistant and, it turns out electronics and water don't mix, but every time I would break a camera I would end up buying a better one.

The first time I heard cal do DSOTM and Great Gig came on....my eyes just filled with tears.  I'm not exactly sure why and I've decided not to even try to figure it out, I'll just say there's more joy than sadness in those tears.  I don't know who did the vocals for that show, but it doesn't even matter because every vocalist I've heard do Great Gig brings their own intensity to the piece.  I think of all the Cal shows I've attended most often, I'd say I've seen the DSOTM show the most times.  I'm proud of that....here's a great story...Was at the Sanderson Centre in Brantford a few years ago to see one of the Floyd shows and during the intermission I run into Leslea Keurvorst and she's limping, so I ask "whats wrong?"  Turns out, she stepped on a nail recently and it got infected and it was very sore but, as they say "The show must go on".  The cal crew come back on stage after intermission for the outro set, and the 2nd song in, Leslea steps up to the mic to do "Great Gig".....it was the most stupendous rendition of that song by Leslea I've ever heard, here's the link to the vid I did, but of course it's blurry due to cheapness of the camera and I had to dodge heads in the theater which makes it shakey too...hahahaha, but you'll get the idea.  http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=219061668110212&set=vb.100000191409058&type=3&theater

Some of my most favorite Cal shows were what I like to call the "one-off's".   That's an album that only gets performed very few times, and sometimes only ONCE!....that one was pretty special for two reasons 1. because it was done at the Phoenix.  and 2. because it was only done once that I know of, that was "The Yes Album" and "close to the edge" album, back to back....WOW!...."note fer note, cut fer cut"...the second was the Deep Purple "Machine Head" album....Too Much!....and thirdly, Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" album with a Ronnie James Dio tribute for the outro, what a moment that was. Here's a snipit of it...   http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=141836555832724&set=vb.100000191409058&type=3&theater.

I have seen almost every album in the classic albums live repetoir and some of those albums 4, 5, 6 and even 10 times or more and simply for the reason that I love classic rock and have never been dissapointed with a recital yet.  When world class musicians come together like in cal, how can it go wrong.

Oh yeah, almost fergot to mention a really special show held at the Phoenix in Toronto some years ago...special guest Mary Clayton who actually did the back-up vocals on the Rolling Stones tune "gimme shelter"....what a musical treat that was....Thanx Craig

Ok, almost done this blog.


From the first sentence of this blog..."Little did I realize how my life was gonna change after going to see my first classic albums live show"....it's funny how one thing leads to another....an on-line magazine publisher see's my photo's and asks to publish them...same on-line magazine then see's some of my cal musical shots and asks...do ya wanna interview some local bands and do a write up and send a photograph?....I say sure but I'm not a writer.... and as you can see, I'm not....so now I write for 3 or 4 publications and am going through a renaissance of sorts...and to think it all started after my first cal show....Happy 10th Anniversary Classic Albums Live, looking forward to the next 10yrs.




Jack Daniels

Laughing my Ass off...oh right, LMAO

Going through Cal Photographs




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