From humble beginnings Darren Coggan’s concert show about Cat Stevens has grown to be something much more substantial. Peter Cox originally came up with the idea of Coggan performing a concert show about Cat Stevens in 2006. The show, titled ‘Moonshadows’, was performed in Coggan’s country hometown of Wagga Wagga in 2006. The show, since renamed ‘Peace Train- The Cat Stevens Story’, has been performed at the Sydney Opera House, and is currently in the midst of an extensive national tour.
‘Peace Train’ is an irresistible mix of the hit songs of one of popular music’s finest tune-smiths together with being a compelling portrait of the artist. Along with his wonderful band, the Firecats, Coggan performs some 23 hits from across the Stevens catalogue over the 2 Acts. Rather than performing the songs chronologically, Coggan places the songs in emotional contexts through the narrative.
Coggan had the audience in the palm of his hand, with the songs still holding up so well. What come across is the range in Stevens’s work…great love songs like ‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’ and ‘Lady D’Arbanville’…songs of searching, ‘Miles From Nowhere’, ‘I Never Wanted To Be A Star’,’Miles From Nowhere’…political songs- John Lennon had ‘Give Peace A Chance’, Cat Stevens came up with ‘Peace Train’…and deeply personal songs,’Sad Lisa’ and perhaps his most complete, finest song, ‘Father and Son’.
In between the songs, Coggan gives the audience interesting snippets into the artists’ personal story. Stevens, born Steven Demetre Georgiou, was raised in a flat above his family’s restaurant, named Moulin Rouge, which was situated in Shaftesbury Avenue, only a short walk from Piccadilly Circus, the Soho theatre district of London. Legend has it that he would escape his work obligations at the restaurant and sneak up to the rooftop of the building and listen to the tunes of the musicals drifting across from the Soho shows.
In 1969, just when his pop career was taking off, Stevens collapsed on stage during one of his concerts and was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The illness resulted in months spent in hospital and then a year of convalescence. He used the down-time to come up with one of his most creative periods, writing some forty new songs.
Famously, in the late seventies, Stevens converted to Islam at the height of his fame, adopting his Muslim name, Yusuf Islam, and turned his back on his pop music career. We learn of the incident that set Stevens on his religious path when he nearly drowned off the coast of Malibu, California. Stevens shouted to the sky, ‘Oh God! If you save me, I will work for you.’ He saw it as a calling when a wave appeared that took him back to shore!
Stevens started reading spiritual and religious texts voraciously, and when his older brother and mentor David gave him a copy of the Koran, he had found what he was looking for. Not quite the destiny one would expect for a man born the third child of a Greek-Cypriot father and a Swedish mother!
Coggan’s ‘tribute show’ played for two hours, excluding interval. His band, the Firecats, comprising Doug Gallagher on drums and percussion, Glen Hannah on electric and acoustic guitars, Daniel Murray on keyboards, Mick Malouf on bass, and Simone Kay and Erin Mortimer on back-up vocals, were hot!
The portrait of Stevens that comes through from this show was of a deeply poetic, religious and very politically and socially aware man.
Veteran stage, film and television director John Saunders helms the current production with one of Australia’s leading playwrights John Misto scripting the piece, along with Peter Cox, Darren Coggan and Neil Clugston.
Highly recommended, ‘Peace Train- The Cat Stevens Story’ opened at the Glen Street theatre on the corner of Glen Street and Blackbutts Road, Belrose on Wednesday 20th October and runs until Saturday evening, 30th October, 2010. From Glen Street, the Peace Train then keeps bounding along coming to its final stop at the Casula Powerhouse in Liverpool on Wednesday December 1, 2010.
Tags:- ‘Peace Train- The Cat Stevens Story’, Glen Street theatre, Darren Coggan, The Firecats, John Saunders, Peter Cox, John Misto, Niel Clugston, Naomi Coggan, Doug Gallagher, Glenn Hannah, Daniel Murray, Mick Malouf, Simone Kay, Erin Mortimer.
