Last night we attended a performance called "Peace Train - The Cat Stevens Story" featuring Darren Coggan.
What a surprise.
I had never heard of Darren and went along hoping for a reasonably competent "tribute" performance of the music of one of my favourite musicians.
What we got exceeded all expectations by a huge margin.
Darren does a version with a backing band and one for smaller venues dubbed "The Acoustic performance". This was the one we saw and it was Darren, his 3 guitars, and a (talented) pianist.
I really couldn't imagine how the full band version could be any better.
He has a beautiful voice, sounds exactly like 'The Cat', plays guitar like a virtuoso, and sings and relates the Cat Stevens story with enormous passion.
The guitar work is a masterpiece on it's own, and the piano contributes at exactly the right places with exactly the right amount of presence.
I have seen a few bands and a few 'tribute performers' in my time but never anything like this.
Having all the Cat Stevens albums and playing them regularly, I could not fault his interpretation, and to get such an authentic sound with such minimal support was amazing.
Has anyone else seen this performance?
What a surprise.
I had never heard of Darren and went along hoping for a reasonably competent "tribute" performance of the music of one of my favourite musicians.
What we got exceeded all expectations by a huge margin.
Darren does a version with a backing band and one for smaller venues dubbed "The Acoustic performance". This was the one we saw and it was Darren, his 3 guitars, and a (talented) pianist.
I really couldn't imagine how the full band version could be any better.
He has a beautiful voice, sounds exactly like 'The Cat', plays guitar like a virtuoso, and sings and relates the Cat Stevens story with enormous passion.
The guitar work is a masterpiece on it's own, and the piano contributes at exactly the right places with exactly the right amount of presence.
I have seen a few bands and a few 'tribute performers' in my time but never anything like this.
Having all the Cat Stevens albums and playing them regularly, I could not fault his interpretation, and to get such an authentic sound with such minimal support was amazing.
Has anyone else seen this performance?

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