Procol Harum

Beyond
the Pale

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To all readers of 'Beyond the Pale'

2013's New Year Message from Gary Brooker


Photograph by Geoff DunnHi Roland and Jens,

A belated greeting to all our fans.

Last year was a very busy time for Procol and I still would like to apologise for no-show in South Africa – thru' no fault of mine. Pictures on YouTube and speculation about what happened are rather vague, from 'I fell down drunk' to 'I tripped over a lead on stage' ! What in fact happened in Cape Town is that after my Birthday dinner the band, crew and various guests strolled to a bar for a nightcap, that was the last thing I remember. Apparently I was drugged, escorted to my hotel room, and then was found on the floor, unconscious, in a pool of blood coming out of my left ear, by Matt Pegg (bless him!). 

I was duly taken, after a lot of hard work by Chris Cooke, to the Christian Barnard Hospital in Cape Town, where I woke up a couple of days later not knowing what happened, or where I was; and with a fractured skull. After a twelve-hours flight, Franky joined me in hospital where I remained ten days in Intensive Care, then staying in a ward for three weeks until I was fit to fly back to England. 

I would like to thank all of you who sent messages and for your thoughts and prayers that helped me thru' this hard time.

Not knowing what would happen with singing and performing, Procol Harum set off to Denmark to play in Skagen on 7 July. All was well and now I could look forward to go to the USA for our six-week tour. It was hard and tiring, but as usual fans were there for us and again it was great to meet and see all of you .

Our three-week tour in November went well and it was a pleasure to play with Yumi Matsutoya and her band. It was also an experience going thru' an earthquake of 7.3 on the Richter scale – Japanese people around us were not bothered but it was a very strange feeling, swaying with the building. We returned to England on 13 December.

On 31 December I was to play for the last time with Eric Clapton, Dave Bronze, Henry Spinetti, Andy Fairweather, Chris Stainton and Steve Winwood, in Woking, for the AA Ball.

Let's hope 2013 will be a great year for us all, and again thank you all for your support, kind words from Sergy and the Russian Orthodox Church, Roland and Jens for keeping the updates with the website, and Chris my manager who has been looking after me so well.

Look forward to see you all in Denmark in March and Germany in April.

'Occasionally relieved by glimpses of Nirvana'

Gary Brooker 

Photograph by Geoff Dunn


Gary Brooker's page at BtP | Procol dates in 2013 | Wuppertal booking-index | New Year greeting from the webmasters

PH on stage | PH on record | PH in print | BtP features | What's new | Interact with BtP | For sale | Site search | Home