Sun. 3/10/13
Show: 6:00 PM
Stage: War Memorial Auditorium
$25.00 - $40.00
All ages
[Venue Details][Hide Details]
Artist Bio:
By this stage of the rock ’n’ roll plot, most bands that made their first mark in the 1960s are either at home tending their gardens or peddling nostalgia to finance their ex-wives. Very few are enhancing their legendary reputations with new releases, fresh songwriting and tireless touring. That’s where the Zombies come in.
Underpinned, just as they were in those early days, by the individual and collective brilliance of vocal craftsman Colin Blunstone and keyboard virtuoso Rod Argent, the Zombies are simultaneously celebrating the past and seizing the future. Not for them the option of sitting home and spinning yarns, as they’d be quite entitled to do, of making their undying hit singles, sharing UK bills with Dusty Springfield, US shows with the Beach Boys, or following the Beatles’ Abbey Road sessions for Sgt. Pepper to make an album that would reverberate for generations to come.
“Last year,” says Blunstone, “we played in the UK, US, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Holland, Japan and the Philippines. It was incredible.” 2013 contains a new live album, three separate American tours in it (not to mention a festival in Central Park, a cruise with the Moody Blues and much more) and the group are constantly in demand for the prestigious US network television music shows, interviews and radio sessions. Talk about just desserts for dues paid.
The amazing new chapters that the Zombies have added to their story in recent times have created a momentum that gets greater by the year. The group have finally received their due as the great undervalued masters of the original British invasion, with rave reviews and acknowledgements about their influence from an inventory of modern artists, from Paul Weller to Dave Grohl.
But far from resting on those laurels, the band are forging ahead, with a bulging 2013 datebook and an enthusiastic commitment to start work – just as soon as there’s time – on the 2014 release of what will be the much-anticipated follow-up to 2011’s Breathe Out, Breathe In.
Meanwhile, there’s The Zombies Live In The UK, a new ten-track collection recorded on the road last year, and released in May to coincide with the British leg of their 2013 itinerary. Sony Music release a similar live album in the US as part of their Extended Versions series around March 2013.
“We’re very excited about the way the band’s playing,” says Argent. “Colin’s voice is as strong as it ever was, and I feel that my voice is better than it used to be, because I’ve worked on it. Our chops, both playing and singing, are better now than they were before.”
When you think about the history of the Zombies, that’s some statement. The group who famously split up not knowing they had made a future classic album, have had a unique journey.
Argent, Blunstone and fellow originals Chris White, Paul Atkinson and Hugh Grundy formed the group as teenagers in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, in the days when the Beatles were still sweaty wannabes at the Cavern Club. After the thankless groundwork of endless local touring, they stormed the charts in 1964 with Rod’s She’s Not There, a UK top 20 hit that went to No. 2 on Bilboard’s Hot 100, and No. 1 on the rival Cashbox listing.
That timeless and much-covered gem retains its energy and relevance, and its place in the modern-day Zombies’ set, to this day. It’s there alongside other great creations from their all-too-short first run, such as Tell Her No, I Love You, Indication, early covers that showed their sheer breadth of ability (from Little Anthony & the Imperials’ Goin’ Out Of My Head to George Gershwin’s Summertime) and of course Time Of The Season.
The combination of R&B, jazz and even classical undertones with Blunstone’s immediately distinctive, delicate vocals created a sound unlike any other in the charts. Or, indeed, out of the charts, and thereby hangs the tale of why the Zombies’ first chapter ended all too soon.
The relative and unjust UK failure of the singles that followed She’s Not There made the group think they were missing the mark, unaware of their pre-eminence elsewhere. “If we’d have realised how many European countries we’d had hits in, we could have toured all over,” says Argent. “It was all there for us,” Blunstone muses. “We felt we were unsuccessful, but we should have thought of ourselves as being in an international business.”
If only social media had been around then to give the guys a true sense of their worldwide achievements, they might never have split after the recording of Odessey & Oracle, the peerless 1967 album that took a quarter-century to become the classic it always deserved to be.
Artist info obtained from public profile, artist website or social media
By this stage of the rock ’n’ roll plot, most bands that made their first mark in the 1960s are either at home tending their gardens or peddling nostalgia to finance their ex-wives. Very few are enhancing their legendary reputations with new releases, fresh songwriting and tireless touring. That’s where the Zombies come in.
Underpinned, just as they were in those early days, by the individual and collective brilliance of vocal craftsman Colin Blunstone and keyboard virtuoso Rod Argent, the Zombies are simultaneously celebrating the past and seizing the future. Not for them the option of sitting home and spinning yarns, as they’d be quite entitled to do, of making their undying hit singles, sharing UK bills with Dusty Springfield, US shows with the Beach Boys, or following the Beatles’ Abbey Road sessions for Sgt. Pepper to make an album that would reverberate for generations to come.
“Last year,” says Blunstone, “we played in the UK, US, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Holland, Japan and the Philippines. It was incredible.” 2013 contains a new live album, three separate American tours in it (not to mention a festival in Central Park, a cruise with the Moody Blues and much more) and the group are constantly in demand for the prestigious US network television music shows, interviews and radio sessions. Talk about just desserts for dues paid.
The amazing new chapters that the Zombies have added to their story in recent times have created a momentum that gets greater by the year. The group have finally received their due as the great undervalued masters of the original British invasion, with rave reviews and acknowledgements about their influence from an inventory of modern artists, from Paul Weller to Dave Grohl.
But far from resting on those laurels, the band are forging ahead, with a bulging 2013 datebook and an enthusiastic commitment to start work – just as soon as there’s time – on the 2014 release of what will be the much-anticipated follow-up to 2011’s Breathe Out, Breathe In.
Meanwhile, there’s The Zombies Live In The UK, a new ten-track collection recorded on the road last year, and released in May to coincide with the British leg of their 2013 itinerary. Sony Music release a similar live album in the US as part of their Extended Versions series around March 2013.
“We’re very excited about the way the band’s playing,” says Argent. “Colin’s voice is as strong as it ever was, and I feel that my voice is better than it used to be, because I’ve worked on it. Our chops, both playing and singing, are better now than they were before.”
When you think about the history of the Zombies, that’s some statement. The group who famously split up not knowing they had made a future classic album, have had a unique journey.
Argent, Blunstone and fellow originals Chris White, Paul Atkinson and Hugh Grundy formed the group as teenagers in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, in the days when the Beatles were still sweaty wannabes at the Cavern Club. After the thankless groundwork of endless local touring, they stormed the charts in 1964 with Rod’s She’s Not There, a UK top 20 hit that went to No. 2 on Bilboard’s Hot 100, and No. 1 on the rival Cashbox listing.
That timeless and much-covered gem retains its energy and relevance, and its place in the modern-day Zombies’ set, to this day. It’s there alongside other great creations from their all-too-short first run, such as Tell Her No, I Love You, Indication, early covers that showed their sheer breadth of ability (from Little Anthony & the Imperials’ Goin’ Out Of My Head to George Gershwin’s Summertime) and of course Time Of The Season.
The combination of R&B, jazz and even classical undertones with Blunstone’s immediately distinctive, delicate vocals created a sound unlike any other in the charts. Or, indeed, out of the charts, and thereby hangs the tale of why the Zombies’ first chapter ended all too soon.
The relative and unjust UK failure of the singles that followed She’s Not There made the group think they were missing the mark, unaware of their pre-eminence elsewhere. “If we’d have realised how many European countries we’d had hits in, we could have toured all over,” says Argent. “It was all there for us,” Blunstone muses. “We felt we were unsuccessful, but we should have thought of ourselves as being in an international business.”
If only social media had been around then to give the guys a true sense of their worldwide achievements, they might never have split after the recording of Odessey & Oracle, the peerless 1967 album that took a quarter-century to become the classic it always deserved to be.
Artist info obtained from public profile, artist website or social media
Artist Bio:
These rock nomads, who've lived in LA, NYC and now Nashville, have earned their rock stripes the hard way - on the road. They've toured with the Black Keys and Kings of Leon and spent a chunk of 2010 on tour with both the Dead Weather and the Greenhornes. Coco, Poni (Maria Silver) and Jem (Jem Cohen) have been spending their time either in their home studio in Nashville or on tours and fests here and abroad, playing their own unique brand of "Beat Punk." They've had synchs in such TV shows as NCIS Los Angeles, Sons Of Tucson, Entourage and currently featured in the national Kotex television campaign. You can also hear them in Drew Barrymore's roller derby flick, Whip It. THE ETTES' musical peers have always been among the band's biggest supporters: the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach is recording a second 45" single, "The Girl I'll Never Be," with the band; look for it in summer 2011. Coco also formed a band with the Reigning Sound's Greg Cartwright, The Parting Gifts, whose album Strychnine Dandelion came out in 2010 and featured Jem on bass and The Greenhornes's Patrick Keeler on drums. Pitchfork said of the collaboration of Coco and Greg: "The Parting Gifts provide a Loretta to his [Cartwright's] Conway, a Nancy to his Lee," and the Guardian UK compared Coco's vocals on the album to Ronnie Spector.
Artist info obtained from public profile, artist website or social media
These rock nomads, who've lived in LA, NYC and now Nashville, have earned their rock stripes the hard way - on the road. They've toured with the Black Keys and Kings of Leon and spent a chunk of 2010 on tour with both the Dead Weather and the Greenhornes. Coco, Poni (Maria Silver) and Jem (Jem Cohen) have been spending their time either in their home studio in Nashville or on tours and fests here and abroad, playing their own unique brand of "Beat Punk." They've had synchs in such TV shows as NCIS Los Angeles, Sons Of Tucson, Entourage and currently featured in the national Kotex television campaign. You can also hear them in Drew Barrymore's roller derby flick, Whip It. THE ETTES' musical peers have always been among the band's biggest supporters: the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach is recording a second 45" single, "The Girl I'll Never Be," with the band; look for it in summer 2011. Coco also formed a band with the Reigning Sound's Greg Cartwright, The Parting Gifts, whose album Strychnine Dandelion came out in 2010 and featured Jem on bass and The Greenhornes's Patrick Keeler on drums. Pitchfork said of the collaboration of Coco and Greg: "The Parting Gifts provide a Loretta to his [Cartwright's] Conway, a Nancy to his Lee," and the Guardian UK compared Coco's vocals on the album to Ronnie Spector.
Artist info obtained from public profile, artist website or social media
Artist Bio:
Night Beats currently hail from Seattle but as two of the three members are originally from Texas, it's not hard to pick out the influence of golden age TX psych idols such as the 13th Floor Elevators, Lost and Found and Golden Dawn.
Artist info obtained from public profile, artist website or social media
Night Beats currently hail from Seattle but as two of the three members are originally from Texas, it's not hard to pick out the influence of golden age TX psych idols such as the 13th Floor Elevators, Lost and Found and Golden Dawn.
Artist info obtained from public profile, artist website or social media
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