Band pays tribute to Beatle

A BAND will celebrate the music of George Harrison at the Kenton Theatre in Henley tomorrow.

The All Things Must Pass Orchestra have performed many times before at the venue, which is only a couple of streets away the late Beatle’s family home at Friar Park.

Vocalist Alex Eberhard plays lead guitar, like George, with the 10-piece band, having taken it up when he was a teenager growing up in Austria.

“I was a big Beatles fan and admired George,” he says. “But then I turned out to be a jazz musician and played drums with different bands. I came to England in 2002, mainly to play jazz, and saw a DVD of the Concert for George at the Royal Albert Hall, which Eric Clapton had put on the year after George had passed away.”

The concert featured fellow Beatles Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney, George’s son Dhani, Jools Holland, Joe Brown and his daughter Sam who played ukulele with the All Things Must Pass Orchestra in 2017.

Alex says: “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a big band to play that music’, so I called around some jazz musicians that I had worked with who were straight up for putting a band together. That was 10 years ago.”

The rest of the band are Lucy Pickering and Imogen Ryall on vocals, Tony Williams and Bernd Rest on guitar, Simon Robinson (keyboards), Dave Barnard (bass guitar and backing vocals), Tom Arnold (drums), Paul Nieman (trombone) and Philippe Guyard (saxophone).

Alex says: “We’re all based around Brighton and the South Coast. We have a busy period in May and then everyone follows their own projects.” He enjoys playing songs such as Isn’t It A Pity? and Any Road but his go-to album is All Things Must Pass, hence the name of his band.

Alex says: “Even though it’s more than 50 years old now, it is still inspiring, lyrically and musically, so I’m really enjoying playing those songs. Paul, our trombone player, played some sessions for the original recording. He didn’t meet George but he did meet Phil Spector.”

The band have been coming to the Kenton since 2014 and Alex and Bernd, a fellow Austrian, have also performed as a duo at the Crooked Billet in Stoke Row, once in 2021 when Dhani Harrison was in the audience.

Alex recalls: “I think there was still a bit of lockdown going on then and it was our first proper gig in front of an audience again.

“Dhani Harrison thanked me for paying so much respect to his dad. He was really lovely and very complimentary.

“We saw him dancing with his partner when we played My Sweet Lord, which was quite surreal. I still can’t get my head around it.”

• The Music of George Harrison is at the Kenton Theatre tomorrow (Saturday) at 8pm. Tickets cost £25 adults, £23 concessions. The show has a running time of 140 minutes, including a
20-minute interval. For more information and to buy tickets, call the box office on (01491) 525050 or visit www.kentontheatre.co.uk