Sunday night saw Yoko Ono resurect the Plastic Ono Band for the first time in what... 30/40 years and perform the first ever UK gig under that name. At London's Royal Festival Hall she played a variety of material, new stuff and stuff from as far back as the first Plastic Ono Band record in 1970. She was joined on stage by Sean Lennon, Ornette Coleman (original member of Plastic Ono Band) Cornelius, Antony (minus the Johnsons) and Mark Ronson. It was a brilliant night actually, and has to be one of the best gig I've ever seen. There was alot of Yoko-love going down in that room from a country thats often seen her as scapegoat for most misfortunes John Lennon or Beatles related.
She is too release a new record under the name Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, the first since Feeling The Space in 1973.
Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band: Between My Head And The Sky
Waiting For The D Train(2:46)The Sun Is Down! (Cornelius Mix)(4:49)Ask The Elephant!(2:57)Memory of Footsteps(3:30)Moving Mountains(3:00)CALLING(8:15)Healing(4:25)Hashire, Hashire(3:35)BETWEEN MY HEAD AND THE SKY(5:33)Feel The Sand(6:02)Watching The Rain(5:30)Unun. To(3:16)I’m Going Away Smiling(2:53)Higa Noboru(5:44)I’m Alive(0:22)
New studio album will be released on September 21, 2009 on Sean Lennon’s label, Chimera Music.
From Fluxus and performance-art pioneer and
Two Virgins to chart-topping dance-music heroine (inspiring punk rock along the way!), Yoko Ono has been an innovative and influential force on music and art, while simultaneously campaigning for peace on the world’s stage. At 76 years young, Yoko continues to kick ass — and is preparing to release
Don’t Stop Me!, a career-defining album made with her new Plastic Ono Band. The record is a gorgeous, mind-melting blend of styles, restating and sharpening themes while plunging into the always-mysterious future.
The sessions happened at NYC’s Sear Sound, the same studio that used to house the old Hit Factory, where
Double Fantasy was recorded. Sean Lennon produced the sessions with Yoko and acted as musical leader for a group evenly divided between Japanese avant pop musicians, and downtown Manhattan improvisers. In the former category was Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto, and the current group led by Keigo “Cornelius” Oyamada – Yuko Araki and Hirotaka Shimmy Shimizu. Ms. Ono had been so happy with a performance they’d done together in Tokyo in January, she invited them to New York to record. In the latter category we find Shahzad Ismaily, Erik Friedlander, Michael Leonhart, Daniel Carter and Indigo Street, a group of brilliant instrumentalists.
As Sean says, “Yoko unleashed a deluge of new songs, writing about 16 songs in 6 days, the most prolific day peaking out at 6 songs written and tracked in an afternoon. The recording session was like a tornado of inspiration. Some of the best lyrics on the record Yoko actually ‘freestyled’ as if she were a lyrical divining rod.”
The results are pretty amazing…