When you spend enough time with a record, it can become kind of a character in your life. The songs define certain experiences. You learn their every hum and chord and the music becomes a soundtrack. You forget actual people made this record.
Then you see that album played live, by real human beings–the ones who decades ago burrowed into a studio with archaic equipment to create a pop masterpiece–and hope it comes close.
On Monday at Denver’s Paramount Theatre, managed to pull it off. The original members of the 1960’s English band played their seminal psychedelic pop-rock album “Odessey & Oracle,” the one that’s caused critics hearts to flutter for decades, in its entirety.
The band of 70-year-old rockers nailed every nook and cranny of the album, using synthesizers, organs, mellotrons and other musicians to bring to life what was at the time essentially a studio-only album.
The Zombies charted early success in the 1960s with a string of hits, including “Tell Her No” and “She’s Not There.” But then things fell apart. The band recorded Odessey & Oracle in 1967, released it the next year and no one seemed to care. Thinking it was a failure, the band broke up soon after. Only years later when runaway single “Time of the Season” was released did people catch on to the record’s greatness.
On this tour of America, the band that thought it had been left for dead is finally getting the appreciation it deserves.
Though the musicians are old, that wasn’t an issue on Monday. Singer Colin Blunstone doesn’t move much behind the microphone. Instead, he lets his pitch-perfect voice do all the work. He was in spectacular form, hitting high note after high note and turning soulful phrases with as much finesse as did in the 60’s. At times, he sounded like a fresh-voiced Robert Plant without the bombast.
The concert was split into two halves. The first featured songs from the band’s repertoire, including six tunes off of the just-released “Still Got That Hunger.” Some of those new songs stood boldly alongside the band’s popular material and rhythm-and-blues songs of the era. “Edge of the Rainbow,” for example, was an intriguing torch song that allowed Blunstone to display his range.
At one point, Blunstone explained to the audience that the new album already charted in Billboard’s Top 100. That must be heartening, because Odessey & Oracle, which was released in 1968, only spent one week in that chart before falling away forever.
Highlights from the concert’s first-half included “Hold Your Head Up,” a song recorded by the band Argent, which was formed after the Zombies broke up, “She’s Not There” and the opener, “I Love You.”
The second part of the concert came after a brief intermission. This was what fans like me came to hear. It was a track-for-track spin through “Odessey,” a pop masterpiece filled with tuneful songs that followed The Beatles lead. In fact, the songs were recorded with instruments The Beatles left behind in the studio after recording “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
If there were any flaws in Monday’s concert, it was at the sound board. The bass was sometimes nonexistent, guitar solos were too loud on some songs and vocals were at times difficult to hear. The fault was rarely on the band, which executed their hits to near perfection.
On Monday, The Zombies did justice to the songs that have been knotted in so many fans’ DNA for so many years; songs that have inspired fans to become artists. Songs that, for so many, have become soundtracks to life. Denver discovered that this soundtrack was played by human beings after all. Or more precisely, real-life Zombies.
Set list: The Zombies, Paramount Theatre, 10/19/15
I Love You
Can’t Nobody Love You (Solomon Burke cover)
I Want You Back Again
Moving On
Edge of the Rainbow
Tell Her No
You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me / Bring It On Home to Me
Maybe Tomorrow
New York
Caroline Goodbye (Colin Blunstone song)
Chasing the Past
Hold Your Head Up (Argent cover)
She’s Not There
Set 2 (“Odessey and Oracle” album in entirety):
Care of Cell 44
A Rose for Emily
Maybe After He’s Gone
Beechwood Park
Brief Candles
Hung Up on a Dream
Changes
I Want Her She Wants Me
This Will Be Our Year
Butcher’s Tale (Western Front 1914)
Friends of Mine
Time of the Season
Encore:
She’s Not There
