The Bruce Welch Show that never happened

[UlrichS]

Bruce stated in several interviews that he cancelled the tour because of poor advance ticket sales. He said that they would have needed 50% sold seats to break even, but it was obvious from the advance sales that they would not reach this. Thus he cancelled the project in late September to lose no money. Up to that point all costs had been spent by the tour argents.

Ulrich

[dave robinson]

Wow ! It' even further back than I thought, I had tickets for Mansfield. What a shame it didn't happen.

[drakula63]

I remember reading about it in my (at the time) local paper and more or less intending to go to the Scunthorpe gig - although I remember being a little 'unsure' about the whole thing at the time. I don't think I was entirely surprised to hear that it had been cancelled.

[AlanMcKillop]

I seem to recall that Bruce was taken aback by the Hank & Brian tour and that this mini tour was meant to get him back on the road following the break up of The Shads. It was no surprise that it was cancelled as I also recall many of the Hank & Brian venues were poorly attended. There was very much an attitude early on, that if it wasn't The Shads, people were not going to attend, pity though.

[KurtFroberg]

I have good memories from this. We were a group of four friends / fans in Sweden who had already booked flight tickets to London to see one of the shows, when we got the message from Bruce that it was all cancelled. We decided to go to London anyway and through Bo Larsson, who ran The Shadows Fan Service in Scandinavia and sadly passed away in 2000, we got the chance to meet Bruce in London at his office in Marshall Street in Soho. We had a nice afternoon tea with Bruce at a coffee bar in Soho and had the pleasure of listening to Bruce telling stories from his career and we also understood that he and Hank had a "frosty" relationship at that time. I got some nice video from this meeting. Great memories!

Kurt

[Fenderman]

I seem to recall that Bruce was taken aback by the Hank & Brian tour and that this mini tour was meant to get him back on the road following the break up of The Shads. It was no surprise that it was cancelled as I also recall many of the Hank & Brian venues were poorly attended. There was very much an attitude early on, that if it wasn't The Shads, people were not going to attend, pity though.

I attended the Hank & Brian show in Motherwell Civic Centre (you were maybe there too!) and i seem to remember it was sold out, it was also a great show.

[MikeAB]

Manchester Apollo was half full for the H&B tour - but that seemed to tempt them to meet and greet afterwards, a precious memory of how gracious they and 'the sons' were.

[Moderne]

There was an interesting article in Record Collector magazine around the time that Bruce's tour was announced, featuring interviews with Bruce and Hank. Bruce seemed very worried that there wouldn't be enough interest to make his tour viable. He was quite open about his disappointment with Hank and the Shadows break-up. Hank - although saying there were things he didn't want to go into - denied that he and Bruce weren't talking and wished Bruce well with his tour.

[chronikman-ch]

Record Collector November 1993
The Shadows Go Single

Hank Marvin Out Of The Shadows page 98-101
Bruce Welch The Other Shadow page 102-103

[alewis41]

I always remember this article when people try to claim that the split between Hank and Bruce wasn't a big deal. It was a big deal and it is remarkable that they subsequently resolved their differences and re-formed the Shads.