50 Year Old Zombies!
November 19, 2011
Originally uploaded by miketransreal
Oh, well, times passes and life goes on.
I may well write something about my sister here, but not yet. Still a lot to do as regards her estate, and so on.
Having seen them play a proper big concert hall a couple of years ago across in Glasgow on their Odessey and Oracle tour, I was fairly keen to see the Zombies play the Caves venue in Edinburgh as a complete contrast! They formed in 1961 so this tour was billed as their 50th Anniversary Tour. And yes, this is the same venue we saw Michelle Shocked at last month…
The group was broadly the same as in Glasgow (without the brass section, etc) but the set was a bit different, without the need to play all the O&O songs in order, although they did have a 20 minute mini-set of some of it. Some almost 70s sounding guitar solos from Tom Toomey, the relatively new guitarist, some keyboard histrionics from Rod Argent, solid bass and drums from Jim Rodford and his son, Steve, and the voice of Colin Blunstone! Slightly worn at the edges these days, but he could still hit those notes when he wanted to!
The venue was packed, and the sound was pretty good, although a little muddy towards the back beyond the low arched roof section. But when they played a couple of (the group) Argent’s hits it stepped up a level: 70s rock instead of 60s pop whimsy!
I bumped into Jim, the bassist, afterwards and he said he still loves it (although it has to be a big change from the giant venues he must have played in the US with the Kinks, etc.!) He also said that the Caves was a great little venue and had much better sound than the Cavern ever had! I checked later, and he’s 70 this year! (The other two ‘oldies’ are a mere 66 or so!)
Not much lined up in the near future; possibly a screening of the classic Sunrise with a live soundtrack… I saw it once before with Lambchop providing the music, and it was great! I don’t expect this to be quite as good, but I think Madeleine will like seeing the film on a big screen. (Or at least a biggish screen, the film quality doesn’t allow showing it at a normal screen size)
