SIXTIES CONVENTION
on May 8-10th, 1998
Hosted by the French Fan Club
At the Park of Expo in TOURS City
Report and photos by Christophe Chen
All began with the morning sunrise showing me
the long road to the City of Tours in the mid-west of France. Arriving on Saturday at
10:00am I could see the first rush of visitors parking their cars front of the Park of
Expo and was astonished by the immensity of the Park which also bore a garden Theme Park
for children, numerous and various trading workshops and stores, which actually created a
big open trade fair in this hearty French countryside. About 10 000 people went to this
'Sixties Expo'.
There were no cows, sheep or cattle, but you could imagine such an
atmosphere that takes you out of urbanism to rediscover the deep
country life style! So it is a 'Première' that some Ex-Shadows from England set footsteps
there for the first time and make 'connaissance' with the local Frenchies of Tours. The
'Local Heroes' band seems to give all significance to its name though!
The main interest for me was the home of the fan-clubs under a big white top where our Shads fan-club and Burns Guitars got their own workshop. Bernard, his spouse Hélène and friends have been there since Friday, and then came Brian 'Licorice' Locking and Alan Jones accompanied by Barry Gibson and singer Keith West. What a heartful welcome we gave to each other, remembering this'n that which created some loud acclaims in this Shadows place! Really a pleasure to meet them again under a very hot weather (28 °C, more like Southern Italy than mid-west France!) and a merciless sun which added more spice to the event. Could it be for that reason when people were all looking for Shadows under such sunny skies?
Another big top dressed in black was the 'Golf Drouot' concert hall, name of the famous Parisian Home of Star in the Sixties, the equivalent of the 2I's of London, where the gig takes place, and could meet the French Shads style band 'Guitar Express' making the sound check.
Despite of the meterological change, it was not possible to
do the gigs in open air, so that many people was suffering from the oppressive heat
indoors. However, the passion for the Shadows music brought some fresh sources to an
informed audience.
After lunch together at the Park restaurant, the 'Guitar Express' started the show at
2:00pm. Patrice BASTIEN on lead Fender guitar, Daniel LAVOLLEE on Fender bass, Alain
BERTRAND on rhythm and Alain JOCOUX on drums played perfectly the Shadows sound with
plenty of their hits like Apache, Wonderful Land, 36-24-36, Sleepwalk, Kon-Tiki,
Shadoogie, FBI, but also liked to play also some rare numbers such as Man of Mystery, My
resistance is low, Theme from a filleted Place, Gonzales ,
Little B , etc...
At 3:30pm, another French guitars band 'Atlantis Five' went on stage for some 'dance with the Shadows' numbers that really made people start dancing front of the stage. M. LONGONI is the lead guitarist and played some of his self-penned numbers too.
