PATSY CLINE - THE CONCERT

PATSY CLINE THE CONCERT, THEATRE SEVERN SHREWSBURY WEDNESDAY 3rd APRIL 2013

Billed as recreating the 50th Anniversary concert, this was more a musical biography. Headline artistes were Sandy Kelly as Patsy Cline and George Hamilton iv as himself.

Backed by a 5 piece band George would come on stage talk about his career and the Grand Ole Oprey then narrates bits of Patsy's life story, before Sandy would come on as Patsy singing songs from the Cline song book along with talking of how her career & family life was going or not going at that particular time of the story.

For me the first half was somewhat flat and never got out of first gear, whilst the second half was more bouncy with some more up tempo material. In the interval I over heard a couple of ladies talking when the one said " I thought I would have known more of her songs, and I didn't know any that he sang". This summed up the first half for me and also reflects on the promotional material for the show if you hadn't heard of the two headliners there was nothing to inform you of who they were, no website or other social network links. This probably answers why the audience was only at approximately 50% capacity.

For an encore we wwere treated to a medley of Patsy Cline hits - Crazy, Back In My Baby's Arms, San Antone Rose, and Blue Moon of Kentucky. With the final song being Rocky Top. to me the sign of a memorable concert is when you go home and cannot get the last tune out of your head, great if it had been  Crazy, Blue Moon of Kentucky, but Rocky Top was not the one to do it.

Having seen a number of shows that use screens projecting original images and footage of the idols being portrayed I think this show would be enhanced conciderably by such technology, cutting down the slow paced narration.

Whilst the stars of the show are well respected artistes in their own rights, for me for this show to last and improve audience figures it would need to be rebilled as Patsy Cline & Friends and introduce tributes of other top country music stars which would have more universal appeal.

Saying all this, those that were there bought programmes and other merchandise so it appealed to them, and they certainly joined in with the more popular singalong numbers of the second half.

All the songs were there - Crazy, Blue moon of Kentucky, After Midnight, Your Cheatin' Heart, I Fall To Pieces, Sweet Dreams, San Antone Rose, and 2 Cigarettes in an Ashtray.

Alan Crowe

If you were at this or any show on the current tour please feel free to add your comments on how you saw the show!