by ELET » Tue Mar 15, 2011 4:51 pm
I was never very interested in the Shadows when I was young and they were topping the singles charts. Living in East Anglia where there were lots of American air bases I was exposed to,and prefered the rock and roll and electric blues sounds coming from the USA. Although I lived close to Great Yarmouth and the Shadows played at least one summer season with Cliff Richard there I never saw them perform live. What did they really sound like on those package tours? These days the sound equipment used by touring bands is probably more sophisticated than anything available in a studio back in the late 50s'/early 60s' . The only record, (no pun intended), we have of live theatre perfomances from that time were probably specially recorded for commercial release, so all we have are memories of those who saw them at the time and the original recordings, (if they haven't been remixed). I know that memories can be a bit unreliable, for instance I saw the Rolling Stones in Hyde Park and thought they sounded great at the time, the DVD of the gig reveals that they were well out of tune and gave a shambolic performance.