Bergen Performing Arts Center located at 30 North Van Brunt Street in Englewood, New Jersey presents The Moody Blues tonight, August 12th 2014 at 8PM. Be sure to reserve tickets to see the band that has been rocking the world with its brand of progressive rock hits for over 30 years at www.ticketmaster.com or Box Office at 201.227.1030.
The Moody Blues, still rocking in 2014 with original members Justin Hayward, John Lodge and Graeme Edge, have released 24 albums in a career spanning nearly five decades. They have sold more than 70 million albums, earning them 18 platinum discs and all manner of awards including Playboy "Group of the Year", the "Golden Ticket" award for selling the most tickets at Madison Square Garden and an Ivor Novello for Outstanding Contribution to British Music; the band has even appeared in an episode of "The Simpsons".
Their classic album Days of Future Passed (featuring the Moody Blues' signature song "Nights in White Satin") heralded the era of the concept album and elaborate sleeve artwork that would epitomise the Progressive Rock movement that followed.
Formed in 1964 in Birmingham, The Moody Blues came from the same gene pool that would give the world Traffic, the Move, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Slade. The original line-up of the band (Denny Laine, Graeme Edge, Clint Warwick, Ray Thomas and Mike Pinder) scored a global number one hit with "Go Now," but unable to follow up this success, Warwick and Laine left the group - to be replaced by John Lodge and Justin Hayward respectively in 1966. For the next few months, the band crafted a new set of original compositions that would change their fortunes.
Drastically re-thinking their musical approach, the band began to compose new material in a uniquely different style. Eager to recoup some of the money they had invested in the band, Decca asked The Moody Blues to record a rock version of Dvorak's New World Symphony to demonstrate a new stereo system they were launching known as 'Deramic' sound. Instead, the Moodies, along with producer Tony Clarke, used the orchestral settings for a suite of their own songs, which resulted in Days Of Future Passed, a record that was as groundbreaking as any of that era and featured the band's signature song, "Nights In White Satin." This proved a turning point for the band and they soon became acknowledged masters of lushly orchestrated psychedelic rock and trailblazers in the use of the mellotron, which they used both live and in the studio to mimic the sounds of a full orchestra. Era defining albums such as In Search Of The Lost Chord, On The Threshold Of A Dream, To Our Children's Children's Children, A Question Of Balance, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and Seventh Sojourn followed and The Moody Blues have continued to release albums through the 80's and 90's through the present, thrilling audiences with their live shows all over the world.
"I suppose that it is our songs, and the way we interpret them that has seen us travel so far," says Justin Hayward. "It means so much to us that some of our recordings have really meant something to people."
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