Despite a fairly poor turnout, they got a good review here......
www.al.com:80/entertainment/mobileregist...0.xml&coll=3
'Flashback' keeps rockin' despite small turnout
Thursday, August 28, 2008
By LAWRENCE SPECKER
Entertainment Reporter
For a few thousand classic rock fans, the past came vividly into the present Wednesday evening at the Mobile Civic Center.
They were experiencing a slight return, as Jimi Hendrix might put it, but in a good way. They were taking in the world premiere of "Flashback: The Classic Rock Experience," a show years in the making and one that has spent the last week and a half in rehearsals in Mobile.
This was rock as repertory: Songs by the likes of Janis Joplin, the Doors, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, presented by the Mystic Orchestra, an expansive rock band augmented by strings, horns and chorus.
Add to that a multimedia production heavy on state-of-the-art sound, lighting, video and pyrotechnic effects, and you have a grand tribute to a fondly remembered era.
There was no getting around the fact that the turnout was light. Less than half of the 7,000 or so tickets were sold.
That many empty seats can suck the energy out of a room. Yet "Flashback's" crowd repeatedly showed through vigorous applause that their energy was just fine.
They applauded at the ends of songs. They applauded the familiar introductions to songs. They applauded the lasers. They appreciatively welcomed Three Dog Night's Chuck Negron, one of five lead vocalists, and heartily sang along on "Joy to the World."
After the intermission, the Mystic Orchestra partly solved the empty-seat problem by inviting folks to move down and forward for a more intimate feeling. (It's worth noting that most stops in the show's upcoming tour fall in larger markets than Mobile.)
The risk with orchestral rock is that the music can lose a critical measure of spontaneity. A large ensemble's precision can, unfortunately, be a weakness.
"Flashback" avoided this, for the most part. During "Smoke on the Water," this listener found himself wishing the sound system was way too loud, instead of reasonably so, that the signature guitar riff was being delivered at a volume that blew the strings and horns and chorus right off the stage.
Such moments of wretched excess are not in the cards in this production.
But there's plenty of excellent music to compensate. Vocalist Katrina Chester did full justice to the Joplin tunes. "Born to be Wild" churned nicely. The three-guitar lineup led a soaring "Layla."
The opening blast of the second half, as the Mystic Orchestra finally sank its teeth into Pink Floyd, made it clear that this will be where the show really hits its stride. The Floyd's multilayered studio compositions almost demand an orchestra, and Led Zeppelin tunes such as "Kashmir" and the inevitable "Stairway to Heaven" make good use of one as well.
It might have been a sparse start, crowd-wise, but it did rock. From here, "Flashback" moves on to a busy run of nearly 50 dates through Nov. 9.
Doubtless, as the approximately 70-member crew swings into a run of four cities in four nights starting Friday, they'll look back fondly on the relatively calm pace of rehearsals in Mobile.
And on a night when, Fay and Gustav notwithstanding, they were the biggest storm in town.
