The Henfield Hall, Henfield

Alex Eberhard and Bernd Rest team up again to offer The Music Of George Harrison – Live! this autumn.

On November 6 at The Henfield Hall, Henfield (tickets via wegottickets.com).

The duo emerged from the ten-piece All Things Must Pass Orchestra which Alex led and in which Bernd featured. The orchestra ran for 13 years before calling it a day earlier this year.

The duo emerged as a more practical sideline during the pandemic and now they are set to continue post-orchestra.

“It seemed the right decision when we finished the orchestra for various reasons,” Alex says. “But it was a great time and it was a great bunch of musicians. I never saw us as a tribute band but really just honouring the music rather than trying to look like George or give the audience the illusion that it was George on stage.

“But actually I never intended the duo. It happened almost as an accident when the Crooked Billet (near Henley where the Harrison family go for lunch) asked me to do a solo performance of George's songs for 2020 (for the 50th anniversary of All Things Must Pass).

“The landlord wanted to commemorate the anniversary. In 2017 Sam Brown (daughter of Joe, close friend of George Harrison) joined us for a couple of shows and she played on one of the ukuleles that George had given her dad. Sam played some George Harrison songs with her brother at the Crooked Billet and in 2020 the landlord wanted a whole show, and Sam recommended me.

“When the landlord got in touch and he asked would I consider doing a solo George Harrison show, I thought it would be better to have another guitarist with me just to give it more variety. And so we scheduled the show for May 2020 and then the Covid struck. We had to rearrange it a couple of times but in the end we did it for 2021. It was socially distanced and a marquee was put up to get a bigger space but a month before the gig I got an email saying that George’s son Dhani had booked a table. We put in a few extra rehearsals!

“But he was fantastic. He was really, really warm and kind. We chatted and he told us about rehearsing with Eric Clapton for the Concert for George (the Harrison memorial concert at the Royal Albert Hall). He was amazed that we could do what we did with just two guitars. He compared our two guitars being so in sync to Swiss clockwork and we just thought well if it works for him then clearly we should do more.

“Dhani Harrison had sat there listening with his eyes closed. Our sound guy was quite close to him and he could see when we finished the songs that Dani would say to himself or to his friends ‘That was beautiful.’ And the words that he said to us afterwards were just words that no one's ever said to us before after a concert. It was lovely.”

Alex and Bernd certainly enjoy this duo format: “It gives Bernd the opportunity to play differently and to complement in a duo setting in a different way. He told me that he finds it more interesting because he's got more freedom and can try new things. He is classically trained and a really good finger-picker, and the more intimate playing would not stand out quite as much in a ten-piece band as it does in a duo setting.”