Zombie re-animated

Friday 10 February - It seemed as if it would be such an innocuous evening; popping down to The Duchess to watch Colin Blunstone, who I had vaguely heard of, and Stolen Earth, a local band who we hadn't yet managed to catch. We had a full turn out with six people in our little group, although two of them arrived too late to see the support.

SE are part of the tangled web of York musicians that orbit Mostly Autumn. The band comprises; Heidi Widdop on lead vocals, Adam Dawson on lead guitar, Paul Teasdale on bass, John Sykes on keyboards, and Barry Cassells on drums. They play atmospheric rock with a prog-feel, think early Genesis and Pink Floyd. But while they wear their roots on their sleeves, they are by no means derivative, producing interesting and original songs. They only had a short set list, four tracks in all, and all new to me. The final two were absolute stunners; Into The Virgin Snow (I think), and Perfect Wave. The band release their debut album shortly, it can be pre-ordered from the Stolen Earth website.

Onto the main event, Colin Blunstone who is an English pop singer-songwriter, best known as a member of the pop group The Zombies, and for his participation on various albums with The Alan Parsons Project. Colin's current band consists of; guitarist Tom Toomey (also a member of The Zombies), keyboard player Pete Billington, drummer Pat Illingworth, and, first surprise of the evening, bassist Chris Childs of Thunder and currently also playing with The Union.

Colin's set was broken into two halves, not surprising really given the overall length of his set. Of the songs themselves; we got The Zombies' single She's Not There, his solo effort (written by Denny Laine), and I Don't Believe In Miracles (penned by Russ Ballard). There were some covers; Track Of My Tears (Smokey Robinson) and What Becomes of the Brokenhearted (Jimmy Ruffin) I didn't realise but Colin contributed on Dave Stewart's 1980 cover of this one. Misty Roses, Time Of The Season, and Caroline Goodbye about Blunstone's break-up with the model and actress Caroline Munro, which he preceded with a warning to budding song-writers not to use people's real names! Old And Wise the hit single taken from the album Eye in the Sky by The Alan Parsons Project. We had ballads, and something bordering on jazz, rock/jazz fusion, and even a bit of prog rock. His output is prodigious and spans a huge variety of genres.

During the interval between his two sets I spotted a familar looking figure hovering at the merchandise stand, but couldn't really believe my eyes. Was that really American concert promoter David Gest? Indeed, it turned out, it was as two of our party approached him and shook his hand. As far as I can make out, he is currently staying at the Cedar Court Hotel in York and is looking to buy property in the area. He admitted to being a huge fan of Colin Blunstone, hence the reason he was at the gig. Surreal or what?