GRAND HOTEL

In my opinion, this is PROCOL HARUM`s most solid album from start to finish, with a lot of Progressive Rock arrangements, and it is maybe their most Progressive album. Maybe it also has some "pompous" and "bombastic" arrangements, but it is very good anyway. Even the cover design is a bit "pompous", but maybe this band always has had a tendency to it in many ways, even with Keith Reid`s lyrics. With Gary Brooker being the founder (with Reid) and the only original musician which remained from the original line-up of the band, he was by then the only composer of the music of the band, and he took the music direction and the control of the band in a right way, supported by a very good line-up of musicians which by 1973 had a new guitarist (Mick Grabham) and this line-up remained unchanged until 1976. In fact, this line-up came to my country to play some concerts at the "Auditorio Nacional" in Mexico City and in Guadalajara (another city in in my country) in late August 1975, and it seems that it happened because they were asked to play here by the then President of my country because one of his sons liked this band. Even the concerts from Mexico City were recorded and some parts of them were broadcasted in the then goverment`s TV channel (Canal 13, later privatized in 1993) in two one hour programmes in two sunday evenings in late 1975. All these things were by then very rare things to happen in my country because during the seventies Rock music concerts were mostly considered as being "out of the law" by the goverment, and the gigs from Mexican bands were done mostly as "clandestine" things. Also, some parts of the audience almost always caused riots, and it seems that some of this happened at the concerts that this band played in Mexico City, but it seems that there were not very big riots. I was ten years old then, and I did not attend those concerts, but some of my brothers, cousins and their friends went to one of those concerts. I only watched to both TV programmes, and one of my brothers recorded them in cassettes (from the TV speaker) which don`t work anymore. But anyway, I remember that the band played the "Grand Hotel" song in concert here, sounding very well.

I like all the songs from this album, which also include some humour in some songs like "A Souvenir of London" and "Bringing Home The Bacon", and even some Tango music arrangements in the title track. There are some orchestral arrangements done by Brooker for several songs, and in "Fires (Which Burnt Brightly) " there is a French soprano singer called Christianne Legrand singing a very good vocals arrangement. "Toujours l'Amour", "A Rum Tale" and "T.V. Ceasar" include some "heavy" playing by the band. New guitarist Grabham sounded very well integrated to the band`s musical style and sound.