MANILA, Philippines - A music critic once said that The Zombies are “the best ‘60s band still touring which doesn’t have Mick Jagger as a front man.” The tribute is almost customary with the legendary British pop music band whose record of longevity is the envy of music artists. They’re nearing their golden anniversary and it seems like only a year or two ago when the band signed a recording contract with Decca in 1964.
The Zombies, featuring lead vocalist Colin Blunstone and keyboard wizard Rod Argent, are coming for a third visit to the Philippines after 1967 and 2006 with a promise to their multitude of Filipino fans that they’re better than how they were before. Redstone’s Rajan Gidwani and DJ Steve O’Neal are collaborating to bring The Zombies to the Waterfront Hotel in Cebu on Oct. 17 and the PICC on Oct. 19.
It’s not as if The Zombies are just recently resurrected from the grave. The band has been performing on a regular basis since the turn of the century and is coming off tours in the US, Netherlands, the UK and Japan. They’re razor-sharp for the Philippine shows and Filipino fans are in for a treat. The Zombies’ set list includes familiar tunes like She’s Not There, Tell Her No, How We Were Before, Miles Away, The Way I Feel Inside, Indication, Going Out of My Head, Just Out of Reach, Nothin’s Changed and Time of the Season.
Last year, The Zombies released their fifth studio album Breathe In, Breathe Out after Begin Here in 1965; Odessey and Oracle in 1968; New World in 1991; and As Far As I Can See in 2004. The band also issued two compilation albums with never-before-released cuts Into the After Life and The Zombies and Beyond in 2007. Only last month, The Zombies released a live album with a companion DVD of the concert at the Metropolis Studios in London. Blunstone himself has kept busy performing live and in the studio. In 2009, he released his ninth solo effort The Ghost of You and Me after a series of rave-review albums like One Year, Ennismore, Never Even Thought, Echo Bridge and The Light Inside.
The Zombies are credited with two No. 1 hits in the US Cashbox ratings. The first was She’s Not There which received an award for two million airplays in 1997 and the second was Time of the Season which was cited for six million airplays two years ago. Time of the Season topped the US Cashbox list in 1969 and stayed on the charts for 13 months. It is one of only 32 British singles to generate at least four million US airplays. The song characterized the purity of Blunstone’s breathy vocals and Argent’s inventive piano and organ that became the trademark of The Zombies’ tunes.
Curiously, the Zombies disbanded in 1967, the year before Odessey and Oracle was posthumously released. They were disenchanted with manager Tito Burns who allegedly took a major cut of their earnings and decided to part ways. The Beatles’ John Lennon and the Manchester band The Hollies reached out to The Zombies and offered to take over management. Blunstone and Argent, however, declined.
As Odessey and Oracle became a hit, a US promoter dangled a $20,000 purse for a one-night reunion show in 1969. Blunstone and Argent resisted. Odessey and Oracle went on to be recognized by Mojo Magazine as one of the best 100 albums of all time and was ranked No. 80 in Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 greatest albums. Mojo’s Rob Chapman called the album “a thing of beauty and subtly-crafted complexity, a fragile anachronism in an age of ‘Street Fighting Man’ revolutionary rhetoric and incipient cock rock.” Chapman continued, “For every jaunty and carefree lyrical sentiment, there seemed to be an unsettling or bittersweet counterpoint. As intricately layered as (The Beach Boys’) Pet Sounds, the vocal arrangements made full use of the increasing sophistication of studio technology.” It is a little-known fact that the album was recorded at Abbey Road in the studio next door to The Beatles as they were cutting tracks for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Time of the Season wasn’t the only favorite track in the album. Another cut This Will Be Our Year was used by Nike for a Father’s Day TV commercial in 2006 showing Tiger Woods and his late father Earl. The song is popular in wedding receptions.
In 1991, The Zombies reassembled to produce a studio album New World if only to put an end to impostors masquerading as the English musicians. At least three pseudo-Zombies groups were on the road, capitalizing on the St. Albans band’s popularity, and until Blunstone and Argent decided to reconvene, they were raking it in as plagiarists. In 1998, Blunstone and Argent felt the magic on stage once more, bringing The Zombies back to life for good.
The incredible thing about The Zombies is Blunstone’s distinctive pipes are in excellent shape and Argent’s amazing keyboard play remains of the highest order — after close to 50 years when they got together as students in Grammar School to rehearse in a room over a store owned by original bassist Chris White’s father. They’ve come a long way from winning a Herts Beat competition for new bands organized by the London newspaper Evening News in 1964 and now, they’re music legends in their own time.
For their third Philippine tour, The Zombies will be bannered by Blunstone and Argent with former Kinks bassist Jim Rodford, drummer Steve Rodford and lead guitarist Tom Toomey in the band. This lineup has remained steady the last few years, generating applause from a wide spectrum of music lovers including Blood Sweat and Tears founder Al Kooper, Paul Weller of The Jam and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin. It was Kooper who, as an A&R (Artists and Repertoire) executive for Columbia Records, pushed for the label to produce Odessey and Oracle. Kooper was in London at the height of the British Invasion in 1968 binging on clothes and LPs by Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll and Trinity, Edgar Broughton Band and the Downliners Sect when he learned about Odessey and Oracle. Kooper convinced his Columbia boss Clive Davis to take a chance on the album and The Zombies subsequently received a massive US playup — even in Boise, Idaho.
The Zombies’ Waterfront Hotel Cebu show will have Gov. Gwen Garcia and the Renaissance Band as special guests. Tickets are now available at TicketWorld (with tel. no. 891-9999) and SM Tickets (470-2222).