The Spaghetti Western Orchestra live at the Royal Albert Hall 2011, full show.
Death, Innocence and Revenge…
Welcome to the world of the Spaghetti Western Orchestra. Performing any sort of tribute to the iconoclastic duo of Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone requires broad stroke understanding of the words orchestration and abstraction: controlled chaos on a big wide shot. The close-up is on the sound of a tin whistle barely breathing – bathing in a sea of red haze on stage. There is blood in this sound. There is also balance and un-relinquishing beauty. The crunch and jangle of the cowboy boot travels to one-hundred men marching and whistling. Bridges are blown up, coyotes howl, bullets ricochet and church bells ring – it’s like a Pollock – it’s everywhere and anything – and it is exactly where it is supposed to be. It may just make you hot, scared or greedy for just a few dollars more….
We Provide the Soundtrack; You Make the Movie
One of the most satisfying parts of performing the show is the opportunity to sonically reconstruct a collective euphoric recall in the audiences’ mind – trying to desperately remember the where-what-or-who-it-was.. which film did that piece of music come from? Or for someone who has never even seen A Fistful of Dollars or Two Mules for Sister Sarah – to marvel of how simple it is to re-create the sound of birds flapping away using some mundane everyday object – or the sound of a cowboy boot crunch in the gravel – using your average morning cereal. It is a show for everyone – and you are welcome to use your imagination – there are no pictures. We play the music – you make the movie in your head. You be the bad or the good if you please, we be the ugly, the smooth and the colourful sound that is the genius of Morricone.
Denis Blais
Director–Designer