Possibly the most ambitious project ever undertaken by Above & Beyond, the trance super-trio of Tony McGuinness, Paavo Siljamäk and Jono Grant, set out to create an entire album's worth of material from their own back catalog and flip it from its electronic form into a playable acoustic arrangement. Much of 2013 was spent on this project, rearranging some of their existing work, finding the right musicians and rehearsing in anticipation their first show at the Porchester Theater in London on June 19, 2013. After premiering all of the work there at the Porchester Theater, the Group Therapy hosts took the newly remade sounds from the small London venue outside to the much larger, historic Greek Theater. One of the highlights of 2013 for the group, they got the whole thing on video and created a recap to give fans the highlights of what happened.
The trio explains how the acoustic concept came to be and how they put together the whole live band leading up to the Greek Theater performance. Skrillex made a guest appearance to sit in on "Black Room Boy," giving the tune a more rock 'n' roll feel with his rock background in From First To Last.
The Greek Theater has hosted some of the biggest names in music including Adele, Sir Elton John and Paul McCartney, as the Greek Theater general manager Rena Wasserman notes.
The trio are under a month away from releasing their third artist album and first in four years, We Are All We Need. They have been releasing several previews and premiering tracks on the radio over the past few weeks, but fans are eagerly awaiting the full 16-track album on Jan. 20, 2015. They will be doing an extensive tour in support of the album later in the winter, which you can find the schedule here.
Watch the video below via the trio's YouTube channel.
