Only CDs Is Sounding Like These # 14: Yanni, Live At The Acropolis (1994)

A new occasional series - CDs are coming back baby! And I’m here for it. BIGTIME! Also, some albums just REALLY suit the format, right

I was a strange kid. Was. Am! Well, I’m now a strange adult. And adults don’t have to give a fuck. Kids need to be on the alert and sadly need to mask, or pretend, or sneak their weirdnesses around the place, or have them dragging behind like some extra weight.

On the one hand, I was in a national development squad for hockey. On the other, I listened to Yanni. So I was that kind of weird. Able to connect with and wander about with the jocks. Capable of hanging with the musos too. Forever somewhere between.

Yiannis Chryssomallis is truly better known to the world as Yanni — and though he still makes music I really only know him from the material he was across 30 years ago. And though it now fits the wheelhouse so comfortably, back then it sat in my CD collection with only Enigma to keep it company.

I know you’ll believe me, and you’ll know I also don’t care if you don’t, when I tell you the real reason that I wanted this Yanni CD was because of the drummer that played on it. I’m also aware that doesn’t make me any cooler, and could only seem to make things worse, if anything. His name was (and probably still is) Charlie Adams. And I read about him in the pages of Modern Drummer, which was something of a teenage bible for me. Anyway, Charlie was a beast of a player (and probably still is). And I saw footage of the Live At The Acropolis concert where there was an incredible drum solo. It was all at once groove-based and orchestral, and he was somehow the percussionist and the drummer all at the same time. And, even as I’m typing this, I’m thinking that now drum solos make me sick. But back then, even if they were over the top (and maybe especially so) I adored the pageantry and chops in equal measures. That’s part of growing up and moving on through with drums and drummers and drumming. It’s about seeing the possibilities. You go through a process. You realise you both can’t do that and conveniently wouldn’t want to but you have to go through it.

Anyway, it was with absolute disappointment, that the CD version did not have the track with the drum solo — though now of course that’s only a bonus.

Yanni Live At The Acropolis was one of the first compact discs I own, and it must be the one I’ve owned the longest for I still retain that original disc — not so much that I couldn’t part with it as no one wanted it!

I’m glad now to still have it. I kept it as some ultimate symbol of uncool I guess. But now I can listen to it and feel no shame at all. It’s retro. It’s also not just who I was but very much still a part of who I am; a version.

The music on Yanni’s Live record is bombastic neo-classical meets world meets maximalism — and of course therefore feels like a pulverising soundtrack to the sort of film I wouldn’t like. But it’s also not without its charms. It’s basically the O Fortuna movement of Carmina Burana forever waiting to happen. And I hang in suspension at the the anticipation. Or, erm, something like that…

Again, it’s about where this music takes you — or took you to, as much as being about what it sounds like. I see this as being the start of an appreciation of classical music, as with film scores. And some classical purist may weep, but the biggest issue the world has with classical music is classical purists. The biggest issue the world has with anything when it comes to art and culture is the fucking purists.

For a while there, Yanni’s Aria was everywhere, across trailers and commercials and used for interpretive dance. It was neck and neck with Mark Knopfler’s Going Home (from the Local Hero soundtrack) in my world, anyway. And I loved it. And him. And the CD it rode in on.

And then I didn’t. But couldn’t part with it, though as I said not for trying.

So I held onto the CD forever. And now I can play it again. Because everything has its second season eh.

Still miss the drum solo, but also don’t really want to hear it these days. But it would be nice if it was there too.

Still think it’s important to have albums like this and not feel you ever have to apologise for them. This is certainly no apology. This is a bloody celebration. Pour the wine!

Also, Charlie Adams was an early drum teacher for one Jimmy Chamberlin of the Smashing Pumpkins. Now that’s not nothing.

And yes, yes, I have already said all of this already really:

But that was (kinda) the apology. This time, there’s no apology whatsoever. Just the music: