“THIS is a long song – in fact it’s practically an opera,” says Roy Harper, introducing the epic, 18-minute “McGoohan’s Blues”. “I might die midway through, like Tommy Cooper. At my age it’s something you have to consider.”
But on the same London Palladium stage where, 35 years ago, the great comedian collapsed with a fatal heart attack on live TV, Harper seems indomitable. Now almost 78, neatly trimmed beard long gone grey, he claims this is his farewell tour, but he shows no signs of retiring from music for good. Tonight, in a rambling, raging, bittersweet valedictory performance, he introduces three new songs, taking in the Kardashians, “sexting in cyberspace,” trial by tabloid, and elegiac gratitude for life in all its mad variety, from a new album promised some…