BLERTA LIFTS ROOF

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32788, 13 December 1971, Page 19

BLERTA LIFTS ROOF

If noise was a criterion of I success, a “concerto” for four i motor-cycles assisted by a five-member rock band was certainly the most popular item performed at the Blerta show in Canterbury Court on Friday. With a 250 c.c. machine as "soprano,” a 350 c.c,. playing melodies, a 650 c.c. with side valves as “bass” and a 650 c.c. rhythm section, the concerto was played somewhat thunderingly in two parts—the first with inter-' spersed roars and lyrics by the Acme Sausage Company Band and the second with motors predominant and vocals ad-libbed to suit. But the final item—by which time the audience was presumed to have become accustomed to the noise—was the piece de resistance for the machines. With throttles ; fully extended, they per- j formed a deafening classic , from the "Easy Rider” film, “Bom to be Wild” by Steppenwolfe. The whole concert was something of an experiment in the use of electronic gear. 1 From the middle of the court, 1 a battery of projectors threw 1 slides and films on to five i huge screens spread around f the walls. With electric t organs, guitars and amazing 1 lighting spotting the stage, -

•Ithe whole was a tribute to the age of electronic mindi bending. ; The slides were of no fixed ■ theme, ranging from mindi decieving designs by a Ger- ; man artist, to a graph depicting the venereal disease rate ; in four New Zealand cities . between 1960 and 1967. i Each of the perofrmers the Littlejohn Band, Beaver, , the Big Blerta Band and the ’ Acme Sausage Company Band , —was accomplished in its own field; Bruno Lawrence’s . frenzied drumming deserving . special praise. The music from the start was mostly i acid rock, but Beaver, a female blues singer, managed to tame it to some degree with her selection. About 400 attended the concert in the early part of the night, the biggest audience that Bruno Lawrence Electric Revelation Travelling Apparatus has had in Christchurch. ■ ! i i