'Shelly' - Eastbourne Winter Gardens 2nd November 2002
© ShadowsFanSite 2002 – all rights reserved
Dick Plant’s old band "Shelley" once more played the ‘almost annual’ (it’s over 18 months since the last one) charity gig at Eastbourne Winter Gardens on a night in November of unbelievably foul weather. There were however a fair few intrepid ‘punters’ who made the trip and the venue was about half full of people dancing and drinking.
Nice to see some friends at this who'd duly turned out - despite appauling weather conditions - we are an intrepid lot and a bit of rain and wind rarely puts us off seeing a band or two. At these sort of events part of the fun for me is catching up with your pals so it was great to 'yak' with Mick and Hazel, Kay, Lisa and a very nice couple from Cambridge who I always talk to at the Hank gigs and I can’t for the life of me remember their names (isn’t that terrible). I was thinking about when I was last in Eastbourne - almost 6 months ago now, when I went to see a bloke called ‘Marvin’ (Hank to his mates!) that the weather was very much warmer.
Here’s the complete Set List:- Shazam, Fabulous (v), Dance On, It’ll be me (v), Theme for young lovers, Nine Times out of ten (v), Say Mama (v), The Letter (v), The Stranger, Shadoogie, Cut across Shorty (v), I ain't got you (v) and F.B.I.
Anyway, so the evening itself - Dick was once more joined by his old band members Geoff Cooper: Drums; Jim Hazelden: rhythm and his fellow ‘Vibrato’ Warren Bennett who played bass. Their 40-minute set opened with "Shazam" (my favourite - ahhhhh... surprised again I was!) Dick had said before the gig that he was going to be Hank Marvin and ‘armed with the red Stratocaster’ didn’t let us down and the set included classic Shadows hits - ‘Shadoogie’; ‘Theme for Young Lovers’, ‘Dance on’ and ‘FBI’. I never tire of hearing these tunes you know...
I must make mention of the singing which was good - the only problem being that, certainly from where I was standing (next to the Sound Desk) I could hardly hear the vocals on some of the tunes - Warren was singing on one of the tunes "Fabulous" - and as Warren has quite a soft voice anyway - and I could hardly him!; mind you don’t blame the band here - the chap on the Sound Desk was talking on his mobile phone for at least two of the numbers (quite how he managed to hold a conversation in the middle of a gig is beyond me! - although by the time that the next band took to the stage someone had turned things up a bit and their vocals were much louder. Hmmm perhaps I should have glared at that Sound Man a bit more or something!!!! LOL) but this, nevertheless perhaps explains why the sound was patchy in places although things did improve as the set went on.
Jim took the vocals on the old Cliff Richard tunes "It’ll be me" and "Nine times out of Ten" on which I thought he struggled with a bit - and, again it was very quiet from where I was standing; but interestingly when Dick sang "Cut across Shorty" and "Say Mama" he was loud! Soft bit of the review now - ahh bless but I did enjoy Warren singing "The Letter"... that was really nice... (seriously).. what an old softy I am eh?!
The band were also aided on two numbers "Cut across Shorty" and "I ain’t got you" by a harmonica playing chap by the name of Andy McKechnie. Andy, as Dick told the audience, had been taught to play this instrument by none other than Sonny Boy Williamson when Andy had been a member of ‘Gary Farr & The T-Bones back in the sixties. Take it from me, he was extremely good and rightly deserves the accolade as one of the best blues harmonica players in the country. He has, I understand also played on incidental music for the television series "Dirty Work" which as some of you may know was of course composed by Warren and Brian Bennett. I enjoyed the gig a lot and Ill be back again (although Ill have less martinis next time ...ohhh my head.....ha-ha!!)
Cazz November 2002