Camel 2003

The house was packed to the rafters and the mood inside was jubilant at London's Bloomsbury Theatre, when - on the night of June 30th 2003 - Caravan took to the stage to commemorate an astonishing career spanning 35 glorious years.Pye Hastings, Richard Coughlan, Geoffrey Richardson, Jan Schelhaas, Doug Boyle and Jim Leverton - joined for a few numbers by occasional band member and brother of Pye, Jimmy Hastings - delighted the audience with a set lasting over two hours and comprising of exquisitely performed material from Caravan's extraordinary and extensive body of work.

Amazing unreleased stuff recorded back in '78 by this former guitarist of Materia Gris in collaboration with Carlos Cutaia (formerly with Pescado Rabioso, La Máquina, etc.) and his former band mate Carlos Riganti (ex Alas). An album crammed with delicate melodies (most of them instrumental) quite reminiscent of outfits such as Kerrs Pink, Camel and Mike Oldfield. Without losing track of his roots, yet a bit left field from the classic South American Prog sound of the era.

Watch as epic battles are waged on land and in the air to determine history's most powerful weapons of war. Four of the greatest fighters are pitted against each other in a series of tests to prove which is the fastest, most accurate, most powerful fighting machine. Pilots, gunners, and experienced vets put each weapon through its paces, measuring every technical aspect, then debate the real-world impact-how it actually fared in the field.

A household name since the early '70s, John McLaughlin was an innovative fusion guitarist when he led the Mahavishnu Orchestra and continued living up to his reputation as a phenomenal and consistently inquisitive player through the years. He started on guitar when he was 11 and was initially inspired by blues and swing players. John McLaughlin worked with David Bowie, Alexis Korner, Graham Bond, Ginger Baker, and others in the 1960s and played free jazz with Gunter Hampel for six months. His first album was a classic (1969's Extrapolation) and was followed by an obscurity for the Dawns label with John Surman, a quintet set with Larry Young (Devotion), and My Goals Beyond in 1970 which was half acoustic solos and half jams involving Indian musicians.