For the last date of his solo tour, the Zombies frontman returned to the iconic venue he last performed at in 2024 to deliver the band’s songs more than ever before because of co-founder Rod Argent’s recent ill health preventing him playing live with the band, who announced in 2024 they would no longer be touring. He also performed material from his first three solo albums and other collaborations.
His backing band formed of Zombies bandmates Steve Rodford and Søren Koch along with the Strawbs’ Chas Cronk and Dave Bainbridge opened on Zombies’ 1966 non-album single and rarity ‘Indication’, with bass tread and trickles of overlaid guitar which went straight into the band’s 1968 B-side ‘I Love You’, a hit for the group People! despite being penned by the Zombies’ own songwriter, Chris White. With audience participation, Blunstone sang 1965 hit single, ‘Tell Her No’, also from their debut album ‘Begin Here’, which was recently remastered on mono and from which they also performed ‘I Remember When I Loved Her’, written by Rod Argent with chilling Spanish flamenco acoustics.
Blunstone recalled the Zombies recording four songs for their debut album as 18-year-olds at Decca’s West Hampstead studios and joked that the band may have discovered punk some 15 years earlier before it came into existence in the late ’70s because of his rash garage-style vocals in ‘It’s Alright With Me’, which unfortunately he didn’t exhibit in his performance but which are audible on the album. He moved onto his solo material with his jangly piano 1972 cover single ballad of ‘I Don’t Believe in Miracles’ by Russ Ballard, the song after which he named this tour. He then did another cover in the way of Jimmy Ruffin’s ‘What Becomes of the Brokenhearted’ – a song which perfectly suited his vocal style – with its own Zombies twist together with a keyboard solo – Bainbridge doing an excellent job like Rod Argent – and Koch’s country tinged guitar solo. The band played more classic Zombies songs from their critically acclaimed 1968 ‘Odessey and Oracle’ album – ranked 100 on Rolling Stone’s list of 500 greatest ever albums of all time – alongside the obscurities including ‘This Will Be Our Year’, the piano blossoms of ‘Hung Up on a Dream’ and single ‘Time of the Season’, the last of which had audience clapping participation.
The second part of the show was a string accompanied set similar to what was performed in 2024 on Blunstone’s ‘One Year’ tour, named after his 1971 debut solo album, featuring a string quartet called Q Strings. They did a medley from his third solo album, 1974’s ‘Journey’ with ‘Beginning’ and ‘Keep the Curtains Closed’, and a cover of Tim Hardin’s ‘Misty Roses’, sung angelically by Blunstone alongside Koch’s acoustic guitar which appears on his debut album; the turbulent strings arriving later in the song, it was almost cinematic.
Further tracks from this release arrived in the way of ‘Though You Are Far Away’, with lute-like keys and quivering strings and the roaming melodious strings and thudding drums of ‘Caroline Goodbye’. Blunstone added ‘Any Other Way’ which was only played on a few dates on this tour, a song he wrote for the Zombies’ ‘Breathe Out, Breathe In’ fifth studio album. Blunstone ended his main set on the Mediterranean acoustics of ‘Old and Wise’ with a mixture of classical piano and strings ending with Koch’s non-overpowering prog guitar solo, a collaboration he did with the Alan Parsons Project on their 1982 ‘Eye in the Sky’ album. The singer closed on Zombies’ 1964 hit single ‘She’s Not There’, beaming with smiles as he was clearly enjoying himself at the grand age of 80 and remained on stage for the encore ‘Just Out of Reach’, another rarely performed non-album Zombies’ single.
28/05/26: Colin Blunstone @ Union Chapel, London.
Photos © Peter Tainsh.
© Ayisha Khan.