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Artist News: Geoff Downes Honoured In Armenia

Posted on Sunday, October 18 @ 05:00:00 UTC by nightowl

Armenia has honoured the 20th anniversary of the Rock Aid Armenia project. On October 1, Ian Gillan together with Tony Iommi, Geoff Downes and the project organiser Jon Dee arrived in Yerevan, Armenia to take part in the Armenia Grateful 2 Rock celebrations for their involvement in the 1989 remake of Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water" and subsequent "Earthquake" compilation album.

The project raised substantial aid for the victims of the devastating Spitak earthquake of winter 1988 in which over 30,000 Armenians were killed and many more tens of thousands injured.

On October 2 they were received by the Prime Minister of the country who awarded them with the republic's Orders of Honour medals, the highest Armenian State Award that can be bestowed on foreign citizens. In addition to Gillan, Iommi, Downes and Dee, Dave Gilmour and Brian May were also decorated with the Order of Honour.



Ritchie Blackmore who also took part in Rock Aid Armenia (and as co-writer of the song with Gillan, Roger Glover, Ian Paice & Jon Lord) was awarded 'Honorary Medal of the Prime Minister of Armenia,' along with other participants including Bryan Adams, Bruce Dickinson, Roger Taylor, Alex Lifeson, Paul Rodgers, Keith Emerson & Chris Squire.

Tennis stars and former Wimbledon champions Pat Cash & John McEnroe were also awarded with honorary medals for their 1990 remake of Led Zeppelin's classic "Rock And Roll," together with Brian Eno & Roger Daltrey.

Read more from Geoff here at his site.

[Source: Geoff Downes website via Asian Armada newsletter]

Posted in Band News (tours, comings/goings, etc)