Why the world still needs George Harrison as musical legacy lives on
All Things Must Pass Orchestra completes its journey
After 13 years celebrating the astonishing musical legacy of the late, great George Harrison, the ten-piece All Things Must Pass Orchestra is coming to the end of the road.
For more than a decade, the Brighton-based ensemble – led by singer and multi-instrumentalist Alex Eberhard – has lovingly recreated Harrison’s kaleidoscopic sound world, from the ground-breaking All Things Must Pass album to treasured classics including Something, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Here Comes The Sun and My Sweet Lord.
However, their next run of shows will be their last.
The final dates are:
Thursday, June 4 – Spring Arts Centre, Havant; box office: 023 9247 2700.
Saturday, June 6 – Hailsham Pavilion; box office: 01323 841414.
Friday, June 12 – Kenton Theatre, Henley-on-Thames, RG9 2BP; box office: 01491 525050.
Alex said: “The band has been going since November 2012. I've never been a fan of tribute bands. I really didn't want to market it as a tribute band especially as we're absolutely not the kind of people to dress up and pretend to be the real thing. That would be more cabaret and caricature. For me it was all about the music.
“When I started the band, I didn't even want to give the band a name. I just wanted to call the show All Things Must Pass – A Celebration of The Music of George Harrison. But people were saying it needed a name so I came up with The All Things Must Pass Orchestra.
“But it has been tricky to get ten people, ten professional musicians, together even just to organise rehearsals let alone concerts. It was only ever going to be a handful of concerts each year but over the years it has become quite a task and I just think really for me it's time to do something different now. It has been my main focus for all those years and I know I will always have very happy memories of that period of my life.
“It's been a funny mixture really. There are so many lovely memories and lovely experiences like when we did concerts with Sam Brown playing with the band. Without the band I would never have got to meet George’s son Dhani Harrison. And there are lots of lovely fans and friends that have stayed true to the band and have come year after year. But it has been getting harder to programme the shows and it's just got a bit too much really.”
It will be something Alex can look back on with pride and satisfaction: “From the age of 13 when I first started playing the guitar, I've always been a Beatles fan and George Harrison was always my favourite Beatle. I was obsessed with listening to his solo work.”
And it has been fascinating to see George Harrison's music from the inside: “Being a professional musician and working with professional musicians, we all felt the same but it just never gets boring playing George Harrison's music. There are so many little things in the music that keep you interested. I remember at the time in 2021 when I met Dhani Harrison, he said: ‘Dad’s music is not easy to play.’ They rehearsed for the Concert for George for two or three months. It is really not just straightforward pop music.
“But I think I've got over the years a really deep feeling for the music and a special feeling for the lyrics. I think I understand what George means with a lot of the spiritual lyrics. And I think a lot of the songs are still just so relevant to today, maybe even more so. I do think that the world still needs George Harrison.”
Which makes it even better news that Alex is certainly considering continuing the duo show he has been developing over the past few years with Bernd Rest, his colleague from the orchestra
“I think we will do some duo gigs. I have not organised anything. I just wanted to concentrate on the shows that we've got for the orchestra, but maybe after that. I know that the duo shows had a different impact to that ten-piece orchestra, and the duo shows are so much more portable and so much easier to organise and much less challenging.”