Love With The Zombies!

I was able to get a couple of tickets for tonight's show, at Chicago's Park West! I'm picking them up at will call and I can't wait. I even got my wife to take off work early to see Love and the Zombies, with me. I'm hoping we get there early so we can pick up the tickets, and have enough time for an early dinner! And then it's show time! I'll report back!

BTW, I'm dreading the Friday night traffic, but you gotta do what ya gotta do!

 

Try and bring back some pictures if you can Joe.

 

See you there, Joe.

Love is starting at 7:20, I'm told.

 

One of the many reasons God invented cigars, Joe!

 

I saw Arthur Lee on his "Forever Changes" tour when he came to Brighton - it was a trip!

Have a great time

Ahh, cigars.....one of the main reasons God invented the laryngectomy .

 

Love was great this time out. Zombies... very good (love Colin B) but they are evolving into a pretty slick oldies act, new album or not. Maybe that's what they're working towards anyway. Nice paychecks there. But Arthur Lee was spontaneous, fun and very much the bad dude. Hope he keeps his demons in check!

 

Saw them last night in Minneapolis...great show.

 

Who are the current members of Love?

 

My review.

Firstly, a note about the crowd. As I expected, I was one of the youngest audience members in attendence. That said, the crowd was fairly responsive. There was, however, a large contingent of one of the most hated species known to man directly to my right: loud, drunk baby boomers. Arthur Lee was a bit late in getting to the stage, and these people were screaming, carrying on, and generally making asses of themselves.

Anyway.

Interestingly, we had two bands playing that seemed as if they were promoting albums released well over thirty years ago. Love's set was almost entirely from Forever Changes and/or the few singles directly surrounding the album. No "I'm With You" or "Mushroom Clouds," in other words. The printed setlist (which I was privy to) listed a slightly different set than they actually played, as "Live and Let Live" wasn't on the setlist, but Andmoreagain (which wasn't played) was.

I must confess that I'm not a huge fan of Love. Oh, I like their albums fine, especially during the "classic" era. But I've never appreciated Arthur Lee's "look-at-me-I'm-an-enigma!" act, and I don't find them to be quite as pioneering as others clearly do. That said...man, Arthur Lee has his **** together more than I ever thought he would. That man (and his band...which, shockingly enough, included Love guitarist Johnny Echolls...that usually isn't the case, right?) knows his stuff. He looked great. He sounded great...he didn't always hit the right notes, but he put more than the requisite energy in. He was a showman, his band was energetic, and I freakin' loved the set. Arthur, hour late or not, you've redeemed yourself in my eyes. That said, I'm not buying a 5-song EP for $15. Sorry.

The Zombies...ehh. Whose bright idea was it to put Love on first? Make no mistake, Rod, Colin and co. *are* an Oldies act, and they really couldn't hope to follow Love. That said, I was particularly disappointed with their set. I love Colin dearly, but he's hade the same somewhat awkward stage presence from the very beginning...he doesn't quite know what to do with himself, and consequently he comes off as more than a bit schmaltzy. He was entirely upstaged in the awkward department by Rod, though, who a) didn't look very good at all, and b) made the most fascinating faces while playing a slightly dinky-sounding keyboard. Bob Henrit was OK, I guess. I wasn't thrilled with the arrangements in general.

So yeah. A lot of pimping of Odessey and Oracle, and then right into two songs from the new album, of which I've registered my opinion elsewhere. This, I should note, went right into "Hold Me Head Up," a song I also generally can't stand (if only they had segued into "God Gave Rock 'n Roll To You," I would've died on the spot). And then "Misty Roses," which halfway through morphed into a lounge number. Oh dear.

So I left. Love was great. The Zombies were very, very disappointing...oldies act to the extreme. Self-reverential oldies act. I wish I had seen Rod and Colin when it was just Rod and Colin, as the band didn't really work in this context.

So yeah. I guess this is a bit of a downer review, but it was a bit of a downer evening near the end.

 

Johnny Echolls played with Love Damn, I didn't even know he was still alive. I saw the Zombies a few months ago. I enjoyed the show but my expectations were pretty low going into it. The guitarist actually played a flash and burn solo during one of the songs and he actually used *finger tapping* during the solo. That has no place during a Zombies song

 

An odd and uncomfortable evening in many ways.

I honestly couldn't tell you why Love were an hour late to the stage, but it did not do great things for the atmosphere.

That Arthur started the set with a hostile and largely impenetrable monologue about the venue manager (which the band later assured me was not even remotely based in reality), and proceeded to cuss out the audience for daring to talk over his monologue ......ALL BEFORE THEY PLAYED SO MUCH AS ONE NOTE.....didn't exactly transform this budding Altamont into a Love-In.

Having said that, they were pretty great. When Arthur is on, he is fantastic. And the band are always a treat (Mike Randle's solos are nothing short of inspired). Johnny Echols. Nice surprise. I can't say he was a revelation, but....nice.

Many shambolic moments in their set, but...big finish.

The Zombies (or Blungent, as I like to call them)....Colin's vocals are remarkable. They were tighter than I'd ever seen them in the past. The new songs are as lousy as ever. Perhaps someone should mention this to them.

Highlights? Half of Odessey..., "Summertime", "Misty Roses" (I quite liked Argent's cocktail hour), and the first two and a half minutes of "She's Not There". Part of what makes the original so charming is it's compact brevity and urgency. Stretching it out to festival lengths with twiddly twiddly guitar solo deflates this charm and urgency considerably.

Sadly, no "Pleasure" or "God Gave Rock And Roll To You".

That I found the evening slightly anticlimactic as a whole.....may be my problem alone. I have seen love 3X previously, and the Zombies 2X prior. Also, I'm still reeling from last weekend's Smile show.

Love (who I believe draw bigger audiences) probably should have headlined.

Did anyone else find it a bit odd that neither act acknowledged the other?

 

Yeah. What *was* that? I assumed he was yelling at the aforementioned awful people to my immediate left, but still...it set an odd tone (which was, of course, promptly un-acknowledged for the rest of the evening). And the audience was getting fairly restless during the hour-long wait before the show actually started.

I found it strange to note how *old* Echols looks in comparison to Lee.

Yeah. Let them pretend for now.

I abhor "God Gave Rock and Roll To You." I'd have loved "Like Honey" or "Liar" or "Chains" or "Rejoice" or even freakin' "I Am the Dance of Ages."

Verily. Actually, at the end of Arthur's set, I found it odd that there was supposed to be a following act. The show wasn't structured like a two-tier performance.

 

A few disappointments! First off, the traffic from were I was coming from was grueling! My wife and I bust are asses to get there on time, in which we did, with 15 minutes to spare. Start of the show? 7:30. From years of going to concerts I would expect the show to start at 7:45 maybe 8:00 tops! Like David and Moulty has pointed out, it was almost 8:30 until Love hit the stage. Since the purchase of the tickets, and the fact that I own the "Love Forever Changes Concert" CD. I was under the impression that was the concert we would be seeing. It wasn't! "Alone Again Or" and "A House Is Not A Motel" were the first two songs of the evening (the first two songs on the "Forever Changes" album), so I was all set to hear the rest of the album. Wrong! Instead of hearing "Andmoreagain" the band broke into "7 and 7 Is." But, like David has pointed out, Arthur Lee and band redeemed them self's rather quickly. Lee was in great form, IMO! The band was also tight and you can tell they were having a great time! And so was the audience! During "The Red Telephone," Lee showed he had a good sense of humor. Towards the end of the song were Lee sings "their lockin' them up today and they're throwing away the key, I wonder who it will be tomorrow, you or me." Lee would replace 'you' with Micheal Jackson, Martha Stewart and then he mentioned W. Bush. I though that was pretty funny really. That was about as political as it got. A good thing in my opinion.
Of course "My Little Red Book" was the encore but so was "Between Clark and Hilldale." Yeah...Love was it, as far as I was concerned. A very enjoyable show.
A side note: My wife and I were setting by the one of the exit doors (not an exit to the street but more of an exit to a hallway). This is were the band members would walk by, to go to, and from the stage. I walked up to the right of the exit door as the two guitar players walked by. Behind them was Arthur Lee. He probably wouldn't have stopped, but a young, blond woman stood in the doorway left of me. Of course Lee stops dead in his tracks. The young woman and Lee start talking. When they were finished with their short conversation, that was my opportunity to extend my hand out (we shook hands) and I thanked him for a great show, and I told him how much I enjoyed his recordings. Thank God for blonds! If it wasn't for her, you know he would of kept walking. I wouldn't have blamed him either!

I gotta go, I'll post my thoughts on the Zombies later!

 

Sounds like you had a great time, Koz!

Would seem to have been a strange evening...but my brother saw him some time ago and said they were late to that gig, too, though made up for it quickly. Arthur is Arthur, he will rant and rave and be a bit bizarre, then the songs come flowing out and all is forgiven. Fascinating lad! Cool you shook his hand and got to say a few words, always wanted to do that too!

 

I was at the show also. Arthur Lee (& his band) put on a pretty vibrant show. Johnny E. really added some very authentic 60s guitar stylings. He even played the guitar behind his back for a bit too!

I spoke with the guys in Love (the younger guys) at a bar after the gig. They said that was the first time that they saw Johnny do that "behind the back" trick. Johnny was living a comfortable life in Arizona running a gift shop.

The Zombies may just be a slick oldies act, but their greatest strength is the quality of Colin Blundstone's voice. It really is a well preserved instrument. The opening song for the set is "I Love You" in which Colin belts out the lyric "AND I DON"T KNOW WHAT TO SAY!". Wow! He can still sing great.

The rinky-dink keyboards were a pretty accurate sample of the Hohner Pianet N. Sounded authentic.

2 classic bands for 25 bucks at a small venue. Not a bad show at all for the price.

 

Arthur Lee and Colin Blunstone are remarkable and talented dudes. After this gig I can only wish them the very best (and I hope Mr. Lee remains sober). Can somebody tell Rod Argent to settle down just a little? He squeezes in those keyboard solos every chance he gets.

 

The Fuel 2000 issue of Odessey & Oracle sounds great.

 

Bradley, have you compared it with any other versions? I'm wondering if it sounds better than the Big Beat 30th Anniversary edition. If so, I'll have to pick it up--thanks.

 

I have nothing else to compare it with but I did notice it being mastered well.