The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 35

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, SATURDAY, OCT. 17, 1970 35 Joni nervous at Greenpeace benefit show By LLOYD H. DYKK "Greenpeace is beautiful and you are beautiful. You want life and you want peace, and ydu want them now!" exclaimed Irving Stowe of the Don't Make a Wave Committee to the accompaniment of loud cheers at. the Pacific National Exhibition Coliseum Friday.

I life A it -J IHi For those who are still unaware of it, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission is planning a second underground explosion of a 3.5 megaton hydrogen bomb 175 JAMES TAYLOR unexpected bonus OA if i I' Xf I- li times the strength of the atomic bomb that destioyed Hiroshima on Amchitka, one of the Aleutian Islands in the North Pacific. Amchitka is located nearly on top of the Aleutian Thrust Earthquake Fault joining the St. Andreas Fault that passes off Vancouver Island. The dangers of an earthquake and radiation, should the atomic test take place, are well known.

Yet the AEC, who can neither predict nor control the possible consequences, are incredibly enough willing to stake everything on a margin of possibility that nothing will come of the tests, the committee says. The Don't Make a Wave Committee plans to send a scientifically staffed and equipped ship named Greenpeace to Amchitka to determine and publicize the damage catfsed by previous blasting there and to protest this next blast and atomic testing anywhere by anyone. And Greenpiece will get to Amchitka on the money raised by Friday's benefit, for which Joni Mitchell, Phil Ochs. James Taylor and Chilliwack donated their appearances. The amount of $30,000 is needed, and from last report, the 10,000 people in attendance nearly supplied that figure in ticket sales, with the remainder to have been made up in donation tin receipts.

After that introduction, it takes a bit of compartmentalizing to submit a review of the performers who made this worthiest of undertakings possible. Considering the event purely as a concert, if that is possible, my main criticism revolves around Its length nearly five hours. But it was a most beneficial benefit concert, and, of course, where else can you hope to accomodate 10,000 people? The show opened with Phil Ochs, singer, song-writer and musical vanguard of the revolution. It was up to him to create a bistro sort of warmth in a place with all the ambience of a train terminal, but eventually he succeeded. It was a straight, direct performance songs for the working (union) man.

He sang I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogie as a satire on "the kind of mentality we have to win and the crowd roared for more. Then it was an abrupt change of pace with the local rock group, Chilliwack. This was a superb excursion into rock lyricism, full of exotic musical oddments and delights. Even at their infrequent heaviest, there was a lyrical sort of joy and exuberance in their playing, as Oorge Diaek Photos JONI MITCHELL nervous start then soaring voice Finally, much much latqr, there was a glimpse of that lank cascade of blonde hair and those celebrated sculptural cheekbones. Could it be Joni at last? Something was clearly amiss with Chelsea Morning, her opening song.

She soon regained her confidence, however, and as she went into a few more familiar songs, we were treated to the full effect of her lucid, soaring soprano voice nearly bordering on shrillness and the almost impressionistic effect of her haunting, protracted vibrato. But by then the oppressive reality of just sitting and sitting for hours began lo take its toll. Or was it just (dare it be said) boredom as Miss Mitchell sal at "The whole world," as Captain Boyle remarked in Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock, "is in a terrible state of chassis." I was brooding on this gloomy fact the other afternoon and wondering when Superman and James Bond would come to the rescue when old Volpone dropped by for a bit of hinking. The professor rebuked me for my dark mood. "Crack a few jokes," he said.

"I know you don't feel like it, but in times of peril it's up to chaps like you to supply a bit of cheer. Laugh and the world laughs with you etc. You people who live up on cloud nine have a grave responsibility these days." I tried singing a chorus of Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag, but it did no good. Volpone turned nasty and went off muttering things like "Give 'em a whiff of grapeshot" and "String 'em up" and "Off with their heads." I realize, of course, that as one of the more useless members of society I have a duty to do what I can to buck up public morale during these trying times. In periods of stress the ant almost always turns to the grasshoppper for a diverting joke or a bit of music to soothe the savage breast.

The problem is that jokes never stay with me. Over the years, I suppose, I've heard and laughed at thousands of jokes. My problem is that I can never remember them long enough to pass them along. Sometimes the punch-line stays with me for a while, but when I attempt to amuse someone I can't remember the narrative leading up to the punch-line. Most jokes seem to have a travelling salesman and a farmer's daugher in them, but I can never for the life of me remember the details of their hilarious relationship.

I must have heard a hundred jokes in which the leading characters were an Englishman, an Irishman and a Jew, but their various amusing activities remain a closed book to me. When jokes are being told, I tend to remain a listener. I do have one joke, however, passed down to me by my grandfather and carefully memorized so that I could make at least a feeble contribution to coffee break or cocktail hour. My joke, I regret to say, is a clean one. No salesman.

No rural beauty. No randy priest. No mymphomaniac mother-in-law. It concerns a used-clothing merchant who used to keep a few items outdoors for the inspection of passersby. One day he looked out and saw a man stealing a sports coat.

He ran after him and was joined by a policeman who shouted, as policemen will shout, "Stop or I'll shoot!" "Shoot him in the pants!" cried the merchant, "The coat is mine!" I first heard that joke when I was five years old and I have cherished it ever since. It is the joke I tell and I don't see any reason, at my time of life, to look about for a new one. There will be some, of course, who will murmur that I am neglecting my social responsibilities; that in refusing to learn a new joke I am not pulling my weight, not making a significant contribution to the sum of human happiness. What can't be helped must be endured. Friends once advised me lo enlarge my slender repertoire by memorizing a long, involved joke about a priest, a rabbi, a parson and a beautiful farmer's daughter.

They said that with that and my "shoot him in the pants" joke I would be equipped for all social occasions. I tried, but it was no good, People tended to stop listening before I got to the punch-line. I would like lo help cheer people up. Anyone for hinking? brother has been coming here since 1965, working for the summer and going back to Portugal. This year he talked his brother into coming with him for the easy money.

The Feds snatched both of them Search for some of the profits made in the Cypress Bowl logging operation has now spread to the Solomon Islands! WEEKEND WIND DOWN City medic Dr. David Claman was conducting Dr. Paul Miller of the University of California on a tour of the city when he drove down Fourth Avenue en route to UBC Thursday afternoon. They got caught in a giant traffic jam and Dr. Claman spotted the police and citizens gathered around and observed, "It looks as if there's been an accident." Dr.

Miller, an associate professor of psychiatry at Cal, contemplated the scene for lfl seconds and replied, "Uh, uh. It looks like a bust." Dr. Claman: "What's a bust?" Dr. Miller's ability to appraise the situation in seconds even though he'd only been in town a matter of hours and had no idea of the Jericho Hilton hassle, arose from the expertise he acquired while studying the 1968 Chicago riots. His scary conclusions after Chicago: kids confront police.

Fight starts. Kids lose. The smartest ones then go underground and bekome terrorists Dance teacher and choreographer Norberl Vesak has been signed to coach the Mike Nichols' Carnal Knowledge cast in 1946 dance steps. He's on the payroll as coach." For Candire Bergen! WASSERMANIA One of the great disadvantages of old style democracy is that you suddenly find yourself in aareement with people you can't stand. SHOWTIMES Sense of revelation and elevation to Messiaen-Loriod piano concert the piano and produced a seemingly endless array of aimless, diffuse and self-indulgent songs? I began to amuse myself by watching the flickering of cigarettes being lit among the thousands below, and finally joined the stream of people leaving their seats to mill about the perimeter of the arena.

As I was leaving about 12:45, things had picked up. Now playing the zither, Joni was accompanied by Taylor in a fetching rendition of Mr. Tambourine Man. But 1 departed, farewell peace. was physically enervated and mentally bidding Joni a fond ind good wishes to the Green- MUSIC 8:30 p.m., White Heather Concert.

QE Theatre. 8:30 p.m., Crazy Horse Concert. Agrodome. CLUBS 9 p.m., Cave. 9 p.m.

Isv's. midnight, Liza Minnelli. midnight, Sally Rand. SUNDAY MUSIC 2:30 p.m., Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. QE Theatre.

8:30 p.m., Dik Visser, guitarist. Metro. nation. Although we'd been forwarned of the possibility there was no advance warning of the actual time. When we got past 7 p.m., our time, we figured we had it made until 7:30 so the sudden appearance of the PM came as a bit of a surprise.

Several of us had worked many long hours preparing our show for the air. And the initial reaction lo the interruption was "Oh hell!" Bul we also knew that this was for real. So our personal disappointment quickly dissipated. It wasn't Laugh In or Meet the Press. It was the Prime Minister putting the country on the line.

Historians might be better able to assess his actions than we are. But for the time being I have to say this was the only way to go even if it loused up our show. NOTED TO ME Following our item on the observations of power boat types who saw the Canadian Armed Forces whaler before it set out on the ill-fated journey that took four lives last weekend, the Canadian Armed Forces launched a full inquiry and asked the yachtsmen to come forward Reluctant Lion Vic Washington might have been gloating too soon when he told a Toronto reporter how much he clipped the ball club for in food and long distance calls, while he was trying to get out of staying here. He still has to collect some salary cheques from the club Immigration department sleuths are combing the backwoods seeking people who are illegally in the country. So far the immigration men.

working in co-operation with the RCMP, have snatched 19 illegals, mostly Portuguese working as section hands. The dragnet turned up two members of one family who were illegally in the country. One though they were discovering for the first time the sounds of various permutations of guitar, violin, flute, keyboard and voice. An unexpected bonus came with the appearance of James Taylor, who partially eclipsed the radiance of Joni Mitchell herself. Seated before this guitar, his head lowered and seemingly under the influence of the same spell he cast over the crowd, he sang songs of the gentlest persuasion.

It was vocal tenderness at its most evocative. In his Feliciano-like voice, he sang Fire and Rain and Goin' to Carolina in My Mind, the song he wrote in Spain in a moment of homesickness. Apocalypse of the beginning; Amen, word of the Apocalypse that is the genesis of the consummation." And Messiaen explains: "Amen has four different meanings: Amen, so be the creative act. Amen. I submit.

I accept. Thy will be done! Amen, the wish, the desire, that this may be, that you would give to me and I to you. Amen, that is, all is fixed for ever, consummated in Paradise. "Adding to these the life of creatures that say Amen by the very nature of their existence, I have tried to express the varied richness of the Amen in seven musical visions." What he has produced, by a masterly marrying of technique and feeling, is a musical expression of the inexpressible. Without the technical devices he uses, the feeling would go unexpressed; without the inspirational emotion, the technical brilliance would lie sterile.

On Friday, the Visions were given a profoundly complete pcformance by Messiaen and Miss Loriod, whose mutuality of minds and matching of performing skills were apparent at every move. The work's incredible rhythmic and structural involvements were unravelled with a clear and confident touch; its developing sense of ecstasy was subtly but unforgettably drawn. That sounds, you say, a little like a rave review? it is, dear reader, it is. It was an evening to treasure. His travels took him to Hong Kong, Calcutta, Istanbul, into Israel where he saw Hair in Hebrew, to the Soviet Union, Poland (where he was deeply impressed by the theatre he saw in Warsaw), to the Scandinavian countries and finally to London and New York.

In New York he spoke to an Actors' Equity conference. In Montreal, he noted the real-life drama unfolding in the city streets, bul the only piece of real theatre he was able to see in Canada was the Toronto production of To Sir With Love, an entertainment made up of songs and scenes from the work of Sir Noel Coward. The show he found "very, very good" and he was able to re establish contract with comic actor Tom Knoe-bone. an old friend. By MAX WYMAN Sun Music Critic Hearing Olivier Messiaen and his wife, Yvonne Loriod, perform at Simon Fraser University Friday was something like going to church.

The same sense of revelation. The same sense of awe before such temporal and spiritual magnificence. The same sense of elevation of the spirit. Partly, these effects were brought about by the performance piano playing1 of such consummate artistry and command as to inspire reverence. But they were also caused by the con- tent of the music a distillation of religious belief, an essence of fervor, communicated not only with penetrating cidity but also with enormous intellectual and emotional force.

Miss Loriod, one of F'ranee's foremost pianists, performed three excerpts from Messiaen's vingt regards sur 1'enfant Jesus, and together she and her husband performed his visions de l'Amen. It was a musical experience of the kind that is offered in Vancouver all too rarely. Much of the music of Olivier Messiaen is performed less frequently than his standing as one of France's most influential contemporary composers would lead one to expect but the reasons were quite obvious on Friday night. To do justice to these towering, complex structures, and to their intensity of metaphysical statement, is a task that TONIGHT STAGE p.m., The Secretary Bird. QE Playhouse.

p.m., Three Men On a Horse. Metro. 8:30 p.m., Boys in the Band. Magic Theatre, 603 Granville. 8:30 p.m., Private Lives.

York Theatre. 8:30 p.m., Never Too Late. Vagabond Playhouse, New Westminster. 6 p.m., Circus in the Wind, a play for children. Magic Theatre, 603 Granville.

HEAR SEE This is a television review written from a vantage point you've seldom, if ever, shared before. The Prime Minister of Canada came on the tube Friday night and told it the way it is. He said, "You've got to choose." And then he went on to explain why. He was angry but he had to be careful. So he read his speech.

And because it was a matter of vital concern to the country he worked on it until the last minute and he was forced to read it from the script. There wasn't time to put it up on an idiot board and make him look like a toothpaste salesman giving the sincere pitch. So he read it. and the message was right on. If you want to make political hay out of this tragic situation in which the country finds itself, there are all sorts of available quibbles.

But what the PM said, essentially, was that the country is faced with a situation that is unique in our history. The government is doing the best it can and if a better answer presents itself, the government will adopt a new course. I'm probably a bigger bleeding heart than the next guy but I buy it. As I said at the outset, these comments are made from a peculiar vantage point. In order to make his case to the nation, Prinw Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau had to cut me off in mid-sentence.

There I was interviewing Dr. Gordon Shrum about the B.C. Hydro on Hourglass when the network zapped in with a coat of arms and slide saying The Prime Minister of Canada. The show with Dr. Shrum had been taped several days in advance with a panel of alert citizens and we were rather proud of it.

Bul we'd known for several hours before air time Friday that we might be pre-empted by the PM's address to the must be close to impossible for all but the greatest. For Miss Loriod, in her situation as wife of the creator of the works, the task is perhaps marginally easier, in that she has probably had the benefit of his coaching and explanation but there still remains the gruelling problem of actual performance. Throughout Friday's presentation, however, there was an effortless ease about her handling of the works' stupendous rhythmic intricacies, and a depth to hef expression of their intellectual content, that suffused one, once the initial wonder was over, with a great sense of joy and satisfaction. It is impossible to do justice to the complexity, the musical fertility and the spiritual ecstasy of Messiaen's work in the space available here his Visions de l'Amen in itself demands analysis at depth. Within the work, the composer's rhythmic investigations, his concern with bird-song, his unstinting love of musical color, and his omnipresent mysticism are woven together into a musical tapestry of fearsome intellectual, technical and spiritual proportions.

Yet, such is his artistry, one needs to know nothing of Messiaen's particular philosophies to enjoy his writing: it exists and has value as music of the purest and most compelling kind. Visions de l'Amen takes as its text these words: "Amen, word of Genesis that is the mandu, high in the mountains above India. Lloyd, who claims to have been involved in theatre for "about 103 years," combines his acting career with work on behalf of Australian Actors' Equity and theatre for the young. His world tour was made with the purpose of observing theatre in as many areas as possible and he was helped, to a degree, by the International Theatre Institute, a branch of UNESCO. The financial arrangements, however, were made by Lloyd himself.

He took his tape recorder with him and will pay his expenses with the proceeds derived from a series of radio programs prepared along the way. Children's theatre movements join Links joining the children's theatre movements in Australia and Vancouver were forged in Vancouver Friday in meetings between Marageret Rushton and Ray Michel of Playhouse Holiday and Frank Lloyd, a Sydney actor and expert in theatre for young people, Lloyd visited Vancouver on the last leg uf a world tour Friday and during his visit he visited the Queen Elizabeth Theatre complex and conferred with the Holiday officials. One result of the meeting could be an exchange of scripts and production ideas between Australian groups and the Vancouver company. A popular actor and radio performer with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Lloyd arrived in Vancouver lale this week after a world theatre tour that took him to places as remote as Kat.