Alan Parsons Project to play Winspear Centre
Therefore, we shall call it … the Alan Parsons Project!
Oh, my God!
What now?
The Alan Parsons Project is a progressive rock band in 1982. Why don’t you just name it Operation Wang-Chung …?
You just don’t get it, Scotty. Because the real Alan Parsons Project is coming to Edmonton, that’s why – a rare example of a passing reference in an Austin Powers movie possibly being more famous than the original source – in this case a progressive rock band in 1982. Actually from 1974 to 2018, give or take a project.
The “Alan Parsons Live Project,” as it is now called, will play Tuesday, April 16, 2019 at the Winspear Centre. Tickets are $50-$100 and go on sale Friday.
From humble beginnings as a recording engineer who worked with the Beatles, and perhaps more telling, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Parsons took his studio expertise with him into a career as a successful “symphonic rock” artist. His terrific debut album, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, was a concept album about Edgar Allan Poe – double nerd score! The vinyl still sits in a place of honour on many a Baby Boomer’s record shelf. As does I Robot, a concept album based on the novel by Isaac Asimov – and you can sense what the Alan Parsons Project was aiming for here.
Subsequent albums, though not as well-known or therefore as revered, held this British composer-producer in good stead until a stint in musical theatre with Freudiana – and we don’t need to spell that out. He’s been busy on a variety of projects, soundtracks, electronic music, instructional videos, you name it, ever since – along with mounting the occasional tour with a large band rehearsed in the nuances of … the Alan Parsons Project. It’s so hard not to think of Dr. Evil!
