Who Saw Them First?

[alewis41]

Very interesting reading about people like Stuart Duffy who can remember seeing the Shads in 1962. I know some fans go back even further, so...

What is the earliest date that any members can remember going to see the Shads play live? Anyone see them when they were still The Drifters?

Andrew

[Steve Parish]

May 20th 2004 in Oxford for me!
Then again, I wasn't born until 1982!

[cockroach]

Not me, but I know an older Scots guitar player/Shads fan chap over here (a Brit emigrant like me) who told me he first saw Hank and Bruce in the Railroaders!

[fulham]

Saw them 1959. With clif I was only 13 at the time it was at the Chiswick Empior the Tedy boys slung tomatoes at them and they had to call the Police to sling them out Bruse remembers it well. Fulham

[Fenderman]

I only saw them once, in 2004!
I did see Hank solo twice, in 1994 & 2000.
I used to have a friend who's dad went to see them in 1964, he said they weren't very good! He only went to keep someone company.

[MikeAB]

First time seen at the 1964 NME Poll Winners Concert - amazingly also the last time at that same venue on the Cliff & Shads Final Tour - some years later!

[Mikey]

Bournemouth Winter Gardens in 1967 and then not until 2004 at Bristol's Colston Hall.

[JimN]

Tuesday April 24th 1962, at the Liverpool Empire Theatre.

The line-up was Hank, Brian Bennett, Licorice Locking (on his third playing night with the group) and Peter Carter (standing in for an ailing Bruce).

[Gruntfuttock]

I first saw The Shadows at the Colston Hall Bristol in '61/62. I was 15 or 16 at the time. The next time I saw them was around 2004 in Norwich. I think that was their "Final Tour" I saw that show twice and both shows were completely sold out.
I remember Hank rushed off straight after the show but I was able to meet Bruce (along with other fans) a true gentleman!
Gruntfuttock

[Moderne]

My auntie Penny-Ann once told me she saw Cliff Richard and the Drifters when she was 16 in Harrow; looking at Ulrich's amazing guide, I guess this would have been 12th March 1959 at the Harrow Granada. Sadly she died in 2010.

I also saw The Shadows live for the first time when I was about 16 - at the Hammersmith Odeon in autumn 1979. That was almost the most keenly anticipated event of my life so far! And they were fantastic, of course.