was a rare opportunity for us to go see a vocal group who’d written many memorable songs through the ’60s and ’70s. They had just released a new synth-driven album entitled Main Course and were playing its songs along with their older radio hits. They were the Brothers Gibb (Barry, Robin, Maurice) aka The Bee Gees.
What a night with all the old hits with Barry and vibrato-voiced Robin trading songs and stanzas; the privilege of seeing how they made their sound and who did what vocal parts:
New York Mining Disaster 1941
To Love Somebody
Holiday
Massachusetts
Words
I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You
I Started a Joke
First of May
Lonely Days
How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?
Run to Me.
And then the revelation of “Jive Talkin'” (the first hit of their comeback) and “Nights on Broadway.” And suddenly a mirror ball above them began spinning, shooting lights all over the old Jubilee Auditorium, and they took us all for a trip with a dog to “The Edge of the Universe”. Absolute magic!
Little did we know that night that they would go on to record even bigger hits with Barry’s ‘other’ high voice:
You Should Be Dancing
Stayin’ Alive
How Deep Is Your Love
Night Fever
Too Much Heaven
Heartbreaker (which Dionne Warwick made a hit)
Islands in the Stream (which Kenny and Dolly did likewise)
This Is Where I Came In.
What a catalogue! Well, now Maurice and Robin are long gone and Barry remains at 71. But the music lives on on the CD shown above from Polydor. (Highly recommended.) And I will never forget the Bee Gees’ amazing harmonies and voices 43 years later…
It’s much harder to come by
I’m waiting in line
Nobody gets too much love anymore
It’s as high as a mountain
And harder to climb…