Justin Hayward steps outside of the Moody Blues again today (August 19) with the release of “Spirits…Live — Live at the Buckhead Theatre, Atlanta,” a CD and home video souvenir of his solo performance on August 17, 2013.
Hayward was promoting his 2013 album “Spirits of the Western Sky,” his first solo outing in 17 years, and he tells us that even though the show also featured Moody Blues songs, he wanted it to be very different than one of the band’s concerts: “I knew for a start that even though I had full production on the ‘Spirits’ album, that on stage I just wanted to do it like it was in my music room and to do it like the original versions of my songs, or even like my demos, so that I could bring my home guitars out and do it in an acoustic format. I knew from the Moodys that if you introduce the drummer and you’re trying to do acoustic guitar and have that sensitivity, it doesn’t work. And even though I love playing with drummers — that’s, y’know, been my whole life — but to do it where you just have to focus on the song, you need some kind of quiet and some kind of aura around the acoustic guitars and to be able to feel every nuance of it. So I wanted…to do a quiet show and really concentrate on the little, the feelings and the emotions around the song in their sort of purest kind of form.” “Spirits…Live” finds Hayward playing with a quartet that includes another guitarist and two keyboardists. The 15-songs set includes several Moodys favorites, including “Tuesday Afternoon,” “Your Wildest Dreams,” “Questions,” “Nights in White Satin” and “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere.” Hayward is currently touring North America with the Moody Blues.