Canadian classic rockers Prism are always a lot of fun to watch, and their Feb. 16 show at Average Joes was no exception. Though the show started late, they hit the ground “flying” with a couple of their biggest hits “Spaceship Superstar” and one of my favourites, “Flying” complete with a talk box solo.
As always frontman and lone original member Al Harlow beamed ear to ear, doing his best Pete Townsend windmills on his guitar and hitting every high vocal note just about perfectly.
He thanked the good sized crowd for coming out for a “Saturday Night in L.A.” and brought out the relatively new, exotic sounding single “Tangiers” from their latest CD “Big Black Sky.”
After that he talked about Bryan Adams and played the always popular “Don’t Let Him Know” which Adams wrote for them.
After a brief drum solo, Harlow did something a little different for his usual slide guitar solo— he played it on a lap steel guitar and made it sing, then played it behind his head and grinned all the way through it.
Keyboardist Marc Gladstone held his own on classic Prism keyboard solos including a note perfect rendition of the solo on “See Forever Eyes.”
They crashed into another popular early hit “Young and Restless.” he played another song which he had originally pitched to Rod Stewart, which he wrote on mandolin, though didn’t play any mandolin here. He had most of the crowd on their feet, many of them dressed for the ’80s, throughout as he struck the midway point of the show with the catchy rocker “Nickels and Dimes.”
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
