1963 to 1979 tour dates

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Re: 1963 to 1979 tour dates

Postby UlrichS » Fri Feb 19, 2021 11:49 am

Hi George,

Many thanks for your lists.

I could add for 1977:

The Shadows 05.05.1977 Blackpool, Opera House, 18:30 & 21:00
Jet Harris & The Diamonds 09.09.1977 Edinburgh (Edinburgh Rock Festival '77)

and for 1980 the following concerts of the European tour:

14.11.1980 Arhus – Denmark
15.11.1980 Alborg – Denmark
16.11.1980 Hamburg - Germany (Auditorium Maximum) – 20.00
17.11.1980 Kiel – Germany (Ostseehalle)
19.11.1980 Berlin – Germany (ICC)
20.11.1980 Hannover – Germany (Kuppelsaal)
21.11.1980 Osnabrück – Germany (Stadthalle)
22.11.1980 Essen – Germany (Grugahalle)
24.11.1980 Koblenz – Germany (Rhein-Mosel-Halle)
25.11.1980 Frankfurt – Germany (Stadthalle Offenbach) – 20.00
26.11.1980 Mannheim – Germany (Mozartsaal) – 20.00
27.11.1980 Brussels – Belgium (Palais des beaux-arts) – 20.30
28.11.1980 Oostend – Belgium (Kursaal)
29.11.1980 Rotterdam – The Netherlands (De Doelen)
30.11.1980 Bremen – Germany (Stadthalle) – cancelled due to Brian Bennett's hand injury
02.12.1980 Groningen – The Netherlands (Oosterpoort)
03.12.1980 Den Haag – The Netherlands (Congresgebouw)
04.12.1980 Paris – France (Théatre Mogador) – 20.00

Ulrich
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Re: 1963 to 1979 tour dates

Postby Stuart » Fri Feb 19, 2021 6:30 pm

No wonder they were so good! Nothing makes a band sound so tight as playing regularly and often.I doubt if many current acts could stand up to such a schedule with so many consecutive gigs.It must have been really exhausting with the travelling too.
Well done again Shadows!
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Re: 1963 to 1979 tour dates

Postby Timcooper555 » Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:23 pm

Stuart wrote:No wonder they were so good! Nothing makes a band sound so tight as playing regularly and often.I doubt if many current acts could stand up to such a schedule with so many consecutive gigs.It must have been really exhausting with the travelling too.
Well done again Shadows!
Tigerdaisy wrote:Well, well, they certainly worked very hard- they were virtually on the go all the time with no gaps between concerts and with two performances a night- no wonder it has worn a bit thin...


They certainly worked very hard, all those dates with very little time off.
Don't think many bands today could work that hard and do a professional show every night.
Agree, well done The Shadows.
The enclosed link (think it might have been posted before) of the 2009/10 reunion tour is quite staggering in the number of people they played to. Quite a well deserved swan song to a great career.
Direct link won't work, click on the first link that comes up and that will then go to correct page.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fin ... he_Shadows)
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Re: 1963 to 1979 tour dates

Postby Fenderman » Wed Feb 24, 2021 2:25 am

I think during the 2004 tour they had to add more dates due to demand on days off, they had little time off. They must have been exhausted by the end of the tour.
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Re: 1963 to 1979 tour dates

Postby RayL » Mon Mar 01, 2021 8:53 am

Looking at all those tour dates made me wonder . . .

. . . at what point in their career did The Shadows start to have a road crew (even one roadie)?

. . . at what point in their career did they cease to carry any of their gear from van to stage (though they would have tuned their own guitars and done other pre-show adjustments) ?

. . . at what point in their career could they arrive arrive at the theatre or stadium and everything would be ready for them to do a sound check?

For everyone who has played in a group those are the 'practical' steps to stardom.

After all those nights of arriving at some grotty pub or village hall or British Legion and having to haul your gear through three sets of doors that open the wrong way and up a flight of stairs and then doing it all in reverse when you're hot and sweaty after two hours on stage, don't you just long to be Hank, or Bruce or Brian and have everything ready for you when you arrive and, at the end of the show, just walk away and leave all the clearing up to someone else?
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Re: 1963 to 1979 tour dates

Postby Moderne » Mon Mar 01, 2021 9:47 am

In the Mike Read Story of The Shadows book they refer to an early 'road manager' - a guy called Sam Curtis. I haven't got the book with me but I remember they were fairly disparaging of Sam's attempts at songwriting: he'd written a song for his wife - to the tune of Roulette by Russ Conway which was a no. 1 in 1959. There was also an incident, I believe, where Sam gave Tony Meehan a spanking! I imagine that Sam was their first 'roadie', and would help them carry amps, drums etc. in and out of venues.

Your brilliant paragraph about the realities of gigging brought the memories flooding back. It was all quite fun and bearable at university when you knew that a bunch of your mates would come along to cheer you on, but a few years later playing in a 'club' band - sometimes to little or no audience reaction... I played in a group called The Projectors in the early '90s; they had an alter ego c/w band called Rawhide who often used to play cowboy shoot-outs...not sure if these still take place. On those occasions, the air would be thick with cordite at the end of the evening which, on top of the normal cigarette smoke, made the whole business quite unpleasant!
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Re: 1963 to 1979 tour dates

Postby Moderne » Mon Mar 01, 2021 10:07 am

...but it was nice - getting £30 or £40 'in your arse pocket'...when £30/£40 got you a bit more than it does now. And if the band got a New Year's Eve booking you could times that by 10...
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Re: 1963 to 1979 tour dates

Postby JimN » Mon Mar 01, 2021 12:53 pm

RayL wrote:Looking at all those tour dates made me wonder . . .

. . . at what point in their career did The Shadows start to have a road crew (even one roadie)?

. . . at what point in their career did they cease to carry any of their gear from van to stage (though they would have tuned their own guitars and done other pre-show adjustments) ?

. . . at what point in their career could they arrive arrive at the theatre or stadium and everything would be ready for them to do a sound check?

For everyone who has played in a group those are the 'practical' steps to stardom.

After all those nights of arriving at some grotty pub or village hall or British Legion and having to haul your gear through three sets of doors that open the wrong way and up a flight of stairs and then doing it all in reverse when you're hot and sweaty after two hours on stage, don't you just long to be Hank, or Bruce or Brian and have everything ready for you when you arrive and, at the end of the show, just walk away and leave all the clearing up to someone else?
Ray


I don't expect that The Shadows were humping gear very much at the height of their fame in the early sixties (especially after Apache), but I can tell you that they were once again doing their own heavy lifting on at least one date on the 1969 UK leg of that year's touring. The booked Liverpool Empire show was cancelled because Cliff had laryngitis and they came back on a later date. Now I don't know whether it was that which had changed the arrangements, but they and their gear turned up at the Empire in a VW microbus driven by John Rostill. The Shadows' basic gear - Jennings solid state amplifiers, the guitars (three of those) and maybe Brian's drumkit - was travelling in the VW. Alan Hawkshaw's Hammond organ was transported by some other method (there was also a whole band under the direction of Brian Bennett). It was a cold night and John Rostill was wearing a north-American trapper's style hat with the flaps that could be pulled down over the ears or pop-fastened up out of the way. He brought the Jennings amps out of the Lord Nelson Street stage door whilst Hank guarded the vehicle. They had no assistance from anyone else.
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Re: 1963 to 1979 tour dates

Postby StuartD » Mon Mar 01, 2021 2:11 pm

When I knew them and was around them in the late 60's, they very much carried their own gear. The only person who was with them, and I am referring to the Cabaret gigs they did then, was David Bryce.

Brian and Bruce travelled together, usually in Bruce's Rolls and Hank, John and David used the VW mini bus. Sometimes John drove and sometimes David.

After a week in Bradford at the Talk of Yorkshire, they had a Sunday concert in Blackpool. John came with Hank in Hank's car and David brought the VW. After the show, all the gear was packed into the VW by David with assistance from me and my mates and John. There were the two Ac30's, the bass cab and amp, Brian's drums, together with the Drum riser and the guitars.

Later when Alan joined they paced the gear, including the organ and Leslie speaker into the van. Alan and John loaded and me and my friends gave them a hand. I remember it was an awkward load at the Poco a Poco Club at Stockport and John yelled out the the organ was on his.......foot!!!

After Bruce left Brian travelled with Alan and John always travelled with Hank, usually in Hank's Volvo but they would occasionally travel with David in the van.

It was the same for MWF. Roy Lemmon was Roadie then and he packed the gear away.

Later, when they got the big PA they had a road crew and all the gear was set up when they arrived to Sound Check. I remember Bruce telling them to 'make sure you look after it' when leaving the original Strat with them

I remember a discussion with Hank in 1969 where he asked me if I used a Plug board. When I told him that the Bass Player had made one he said it was the only way. He told me that in the 60's before they were available they used to try to get to be the first at the Theatre in order to get pugged in. He said the Jet was usually last and he had seen him put the wires into a different socket using matchsticks!! He said the mains leads on the amps were very long to get them to the back of the theatres

Hope this helps.

Regards

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Re: 1963 to 1979 tour dates

Postby RayL » Tue Mar 02, 2021 8:42 am

Thanks for all your reminiscences - quite a surprise to learn just how often they carried their own gear.

No PA was mentioned so presumably they just used the house PA (and we know just how awful some of those could be)

Mains sockets - well, even into the 1980s it was not uncommon to come across a club or a pub where the only stage power was the old 5 amp or 15 amp sockets. I had to carry around one of those ingenious bulky 'multiplugs', where by shuffling a plate around, different pins would 'drop down' to create whichever plug was needed. Eventually, the electrical regulations were tightened and 'places of entertainment' had to rewire with 13 ring mains. Bigger theatres had an incoming three phase feed, which was fine until, for example, opposite sides of the stage were on rings taken from different phases. If the phases got unbalanced and gear plugged on different phases got linked together, then oops!

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