Phil Collins: Prince's Trust 1982 Procol Harum's Gary Brooker with Phil Collins and Pete Townshend

Nearly two years after Gary Brooker died in 2022, some of classic rock’s biggest stars will pay tribute to the Procol Harum leader in concert. That day is today, December 4, 2023, in an vent at G Live in Guildford, U.K. It will feature Eric Clapton, Roger Taylor (Queen), Mike Rutherford, and more. The benefit concert will raise funds for Brooker’s preferred charities The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity and Cure Parkinsons. The show is long sold out.
The lineup also includes Paul Carrack, John Illsley of Dire Straits, Andy Fairweather-Low and Mike Sanchez. They will be joined by a house band made-up of session musicians Dave Bronze, Henry Spinetti, Graham Broad, Paul Beavis, Frank Mead, Nick Pentelow, Nikki Lamborn, Catherine Feeney, Olivia Keast, Geoff Dunn, Geoff Whitehorn and Josh Phillips.The intimate venue, roughly 26 miles southwest of Central London, has a capacity of 1,700 for a standing concert and just over 1,000 for seated events.
Brooker’s voice and pianist skills were the single defining constant of Procol Harum’s fifty-year international concert career. He will also be remembered for his collaborations with some of the best in the business. He performed with Clapton’s band, as well as Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings, and Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band, and contributed to solo projects for Paul McCartney and George Harrison.
And perhaps most interesting to this page is his participation in the house band for Phil Collins' Wedding to his second wife, Jill (moter of Lily) in 1984. The wedding took place at a local chapel and the reception was in the back garden at Old Croft, Phil's home (quite near the location of the Brooker tribute concert) in Shalford, Guildford, Surrey. In addition to Brooker on keyboards, Phil's dear friends Robert Plant (sang) and Eric Clapton (guitar) and Mo Foster (RIP) (bass) played along to Phil's drumming. Some wedding band ay? I have heard that Peter Gabriel and John Entwistle also took the stage.
In 2020, Brooker organized a lineup of Clapton, Cat Stevens, Tom Jones, Van Morrison, Rick Wakeman, and many others at a concert in London to benefit the Royal Marsden, just before things were shut down for the pandemic. The concert is believed to be Brooker’s final performance. When tickets to that benefit went on sale, the star-studded concert sold out immediately.
This video is from the 1982 Prince's Trust Gala where Gary performs a song that many musicinans cite as a perfect song, and one of the best ever written, "Whiter Shade of Pale." Gary and his friend Phil can be seen communicating while playing this one and Pete Townshend lends his lovely rhythm guitar to this one as well.
#getphilvotedin

[@heikoendter9099]

Man möchte vor Ehrfurcht zu Stein erstarren!!!.... all diese Legenden der Musikgeschichte zusammen auf einer Bühne!!!.......

[@macover1983]

Marvelous 👏🏻👏🏻

[@Wyndy57]

#getphilvotedin
💙Such an unusual song, about Vesta virgins! Lol I don't think anyone knew what they were back then, and there was no internet in the 60s to look up anything, but the music (soulful organ) and Gary's voice made it massively popular and still is classic!!
Such great info provided as usual Traci!👍👏 I didn't know that Gary also played at wedding #2.
You mentioned a date "today, December 4, 2023"???🤔