The Searchers
Regent Centre,
Christchurch, Dorset
26 August 2011
John McNally – lead guitar, vocal (1962)
Frank Allen- bass, vocal (1964)
Spencer James – guitar, vocal, guitar syth (1986)
Scott Ottaway – drums (2010)
The Seachers website: http://www.the-searchers.co.uk/
For a couple of years people I know have been praising The Searchers live gigs extravagantly. People who saw them on Solid Gold Sixties Shows told me they wiped the floor with the other bands, and people who saw them on their own told me they did a great show. That’s why I went to see them, at a venue more used to an endless succession of tribute bands.
A bit of history. The dates they joined are above in brackets. Frank Allen, listed as their “front man” tells most of it between songs. When they started, as probably the “second* most successful Merseybeat band” (* corrected. See note below), their early LPs were picked up by most of the aspiring spotty teenage musicians I knew. They had a knack for unusual covers. Sweets For My Sweet was a Drifters song, Love Potion Number 9 was by The Clovers, Farmer John by Don & Dewey. The Searchers versions were more accesible for young Brits in church halls, i.e. easier to play. They covered the then recent Da Doo Ron Ron. They did Twist and Shout, even if every band in 1963 did it too. They also used to do the folkie All My Sorrows and Where Have All the Flowers Gone, which early beat groups liked to do, sitting on the edge of the stage, for a change of pace. I suspect The Searchers influence circa 1963 is greatly under-estimated. They did all of the above last night. These all date from the first hit incarnation, when Tony Jackson was lead singer and bass player.
Ain’t Gonna Kiss Ya (EP 1963): They did three of the four tracks.
Then The Searchers covered Needles and Pins, first recorded by Jackie DeShannon in 1963. They switched lead vocals to Mike Pender, but most importantly John McNally added the 12 string jangling guitar part. That guitar part was noticed by The Byrds, who credit it as the inspiration for their version of Mr Tambourine Man. (Though Roger McGuinn also said their sound was “21% Beatles, 11% Zombies, 8% Dillards, 18% Dylan, 14% Pete Seeger, 16% Searchers, and 12% trial and error/ignorance/accident/originality.” The jangling ringing guitar is also on Jackie DeShannon’s original recording, though perhaps The Searchers brought more emphasis to it. The sound is on her original of When You Walk In The Room too.
Last night, Mr Tambourine Man was done as the second song right after Sweets For My Sweet, and they did The Byrds arrangement, and performed it brilliantly. Then Frank Allen told the story of their influence on The Byrds. OK, maybe. From that point in their career, Pender took over as lead vocalist, and Tony Jackson, peeved at being supplanted, left. That’s where Frank Allen joined them from Cliff Bennett and The Rebel Rousers. It seems they’d originally heard Needles & Pins played by Cliff Bennett in Hamburg. Bennett’s band was reckoned to be one of the best on the circuit, and Frank Allen was a highly rated bass player.
Pender left in 1986, and Spencer James was recruited from First Class (whose hit, Beach Baby, is now a part of The Searchers repetoire). So the three front guys have been together a quarter of a century. McNally hits his 50th year as a Searcher next year, and Frank Allen will hit his 48th. There was considerable banter about McNally being 70 in four days time. Both McNally and Allen could pass as fifteen years younger.
So what of the show? The lighting and dynamics are economical but crisply done and superb. The clothes are right. Dark grey Italian suits and button down shirts as in 1964, with a change to black shirts and silver ties for part two. They look right. Of course James Brown would have fined Spencer James for his loosened tie, and fined him again when he removed his jacket.
Frank Allen is a voluble front man. He speaks a lot. Really a LOT. He’s a good stand-up guy. Funny, totally relaxed. Frank Allen and John McNally do a Little and Large Act. Frank does the talking, John plays the quiet guy, standing at the side as the butt of the jokes, adding the odd retort. It really is Little and Large, and I Googled Little and Large to check, and the first item that popped up was Little and Large with The Searchers on an ancient TV show on YouTube. That was an extremely influential evening!
The content was what you’d expect. All the hits, including lesser-known ones like The Rolling Stones cover Take It Or Leave It (#31 in 1966, Frank Allen told us) and Jackie DeShannon’s Each Time complementing her When You Walk In The Room. Needles and Pins and When You Walk In The Room were saved till the end, back to back. I’d guessed they would be. They also covered other stuff … Del Shannon’s Runaway, Roy Orbison’s Running Scared, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap’s Young Girl, which all fitted their style. Tantalisingly they started the riffs for Oh, Pretty Woman and Peggy Sue as Frank Allen mentioned Orbison and Holly, but never continued them. They followed the Needles & Pins / When You Walk In The Room ender with Status Quo’s Rockin’ All Over The World to get everyone on their feet.
The two biggest rounds of applause were the two later big ballads sung by Spencer James, both lovely songs, both beautifully performed. James is there for the big voice. He lacks charisma and lacks rockability, so stands sidelined until the voice fills the room.
Inevitably, most of the big songs can be found on the CD “The Pye Anthology 1963-1967” which is something they’re stuck with. It must be galling, because this is not a revived or reformed band. They just never stopped, and kept making good records after the hits dried up. As Frank Allen said, they’re very proud of their 80s work for Sire, and of the Hungry Hearts album, which brought Somebody Told Me You Were Crying to the fore.
OK, great show. A thoroughly enjoyable evening. What about the criticisms? For me, they resorted to Singalongasearchers too often. Not a bit too often, but much too often. OK, the hair colour of the audience lends itself to Solid SILVER sixties rather than solid gold, but there were uncomfortable echoes of tapping your cocoa cups while the pianist did It’s A Long Way to Tipperary in the old folk’s home. Singalong is ideal for well-known sixties favourites, but songs as good as When You Walk In The Room are either better without it, or you save it until right at the end. It happened in every one of the big hits. If you want to be very, very picky, that huge white scratch plate (well, plate … it’s too high to be a scratch plate) on a Telecaster bass makes it look HUGE, especially compared to McNally’s neat small blonde Rickenbacker. A better looking bass guitar would be a bonus!
It sounds like you saw a great cover band and I’m not sure how much more different that is than seeing a really good tribute band – in my estimation. But as long as you had a great time and enjoyed the show, it really doesn’t matter.
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I was trying to estimate that myself. McNally is original, and Allen was in there before When You Walk In The Room, so I’d say they have half the “real” band, which is better than next week, when I see “The Animals”.
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Third Merseybeat group, who was second then?, because based on number1’s and number of hits they must surely be second, also a good review but being padentic there was no 12 string on needles and pins, it was twosix strung double tracked, they first used a 12 string on Walk In The Room and it was Mike Pender who played it, not John McNally.
Should have checked with your name sake Peter, are you related.
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You’re right, Roy. I was thinking Gerry & The Pacemakers for three number ones in a row, but I’d thought Ferry Cross The Mersey was also #1 (giving them four to The Searchers three) and I just looked it up and it was only #8. Good, I never liked it. On points in NME style, The Searchers must be #2. Whatever, I always thought The Searchers musically far better than Gerry. I’ll amend it. I know there’s a long-standing debate on Pender / McNally and the 12 string. Frank Allen clearly said that John McNally had played the 12 string part when he was talking in the show, but Frank Allen also said “we” when he was talking about events in 1962 and 1963. That’s passable for some references, because Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers were in Hamburg at the same time, and it sounded like they hung out together. Listening to Jackie DeShannon’s versions of both, it sounds like a 12 string there in the first place (or double-tracked 6 string).
Anyway, I looked on YouTube and the only TV show that came up was What Have They Done To The Rain, and on the TV show, Mike Pender is indeed the one playing the 12 string.
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If Frank did say John was playing the 12 string he is incorrect, though he does plau 12 string now, John didn’t become lead guitar until they did the Sire recordings in late 70s.
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a very good review Tim, i wish i could have been there ,
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I’m not “Tim” … complete coincidence on names. But thanks.
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Nice flattering review on the whole Peter and very well researched and written. Thanks very much. We appreciate it. Only a couple of tiny things to elaborate on.
One of the follow up comments seems to have got the impression that we are some sort of cover band but when I count up our own recordings included in the show singles and album tracks) it totals a substantial 20 titles which I think is doing very good service to our history snd I would thin more than most bands would perform.
No joiny-in bits in Sugar & Spice, Love Potion No 9, Goodbye My Love, Take It Or Leave It, Don`t Throw Your Love Away, What Have They Done To The Rain, Someday We`re Gonna Love Again/Ain`t Gonna Kiss Ya/Saturday Night Out (maybe we didn`t do that last medley that night but it`s been in for the last few nights),Goodbye My Love, Needles & Pins, but I know what you mean. It`s very subjective and to a great extent I agree with you. Purists love the songs kept original (very understandable) but we have discovered over the years that a large part of our crowd just love going home having joined in and sung and waved their hearts out. You can never please everyone but we do our best.
The other thing is ( a bit anorak-y here) it`s not a Telecaster bass. It`s actually a replica first issue Precision and although to the average person they seem the same there is a great difference. The Telecaster bass was a seventies instrument with the same contour but a big humbucker pickup and massively different scratch plate and controls. It was introduced a an appeasement to players who had nostalgic yearnings for Fender`s first bass back in 1952. Put side by side you will see a world of difference but many people make the mistake.
The first P bass has a small single coil pickup. Mine is a ‘cusp’ model in that the bass (issued from `52 to `57 when it changed to the Strat style headstock) originally had a slab body (like mine) and a blonde finish. In `54 they contoured the body for comfort like the later P basses and introduced the 2 colour sunburst (this is the model Sting uses though unlike mine his is original and worth a fortune).
So my replica is a ’52-’53 body with a ’54 colour. I admit that the black Rickenbacker probably suits The Searchers 4001 look better but the P bass has been the best playing instrument I have ever owned and has made playing so enjoyable again. And it is steeped in nostalgia being the model played by Jerry Lee Lewis`s bassist, The Treniers and Motown`s James Jamerson among so many others fom the rock and roll years of the early fifties. I absolutely love the look of it but it`s all subjective in the end.
Sorry to be so long winded but you will have gathered that I write as much as I talk. Thanks again for the very nice words Peter.
Frank Allen.
Front man and bassist with The Searchers.
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