Zoe’s “Friends” are better known to us as The Reflections and The Rapiers respectively. Edmonton was the culmination of a mini UK ‘tour’, which kicked off in Zoe’s hometown of South Shields on January the 27th. Thereafter, the show visited Lichfield, Liverpool and Worksop.
The shows at South Shields and Edmonton were particularly well attended. Quite frankly, all of this is to be applauded. Zoe is a very talented and hard - working young guitarist. Pat Terrett is devoting a tremendous amount of time, effort (and financial backing) towards the development and promotion of Zoe’s embryonic career. Zoe has enormous potential. Pat Terrett and musicians of the calibre noted above are helping Zoe to fulfil all of her latent talent and ability.
My reason for this homily is that talent alone is not sufficient to guarantee success nowadays. In this instance, performer and manager are mutually exclusive. I also believe that it would be wonderful if Zoe McCulloch did achieve wider commercial recognition for several reasons.
It would be fantastic for her personally but it would also be a tremendous boost for the currently neglected genre ( insofar as the mainstream music industry is concerned ) of the guitar instrumental. The other main point is that Zoe is not some 'manufactured product' of any corporate media conglomerate. Her musical journeying so far spring from genuine grassroots origins.
She fell in love with the guitar as an instrument as a nine - year old. Barely two years later she moved on to electric guitar. Readers won't be surprised that she was casually playing through her dad's copy of "The Best Of Hank Marvin And The Shadows" when (unprompted) she came across a track that she desperately wanted to learn - "Apache"!!! There really is something special about this timeless classic that has affected so many of our lives.
Less than three months later she was taking part in The Young Ones Guitar Competition at Shadsfest 1997. She didn't win, but many people commented favourably on her performance. They were even more astonished to learn that Zoe had been playing electric guitar for less than three months!
A little over three years later - Edmonton's Millfield Theatre. Thanks to a nightmare journey by public transport from Reading, I arrived extremely late. In fact, I missed the performances by both The Reflections and The Rapiers. Perhaps it was fate. Pat had invited me to provide "..an honest review of the show.." Having seen The Rapiers so many times during the past twenty years, I feel sure that they were as brilliant as ever.
The Reflections come highly recommended by Bruce Welch himself. I was genuinely disappointed to miss their set, especially as Colin Pryce - Jones had told me: "I've been really impressed by The Reflections - they're even better than they were a year ago - and they were fantastic then."
What I can tell you is that their backing for Zoe was absolutely impeccable. Genuinely vibrant, crisp and precise rhythm playing from Ole, powerful yet smooth bass playing courtesy of Arild (who is clearly influenced by Alan Jones), superbly controlled, vital drumming by Kjetil and beautifully understated second guitar from Svein, who is an outstanding player in his own right.
All of this leads nicely into Zoe's performance. With The Reflections in support, Zoe took centre stage wearing a purple jumpsuit offset with gold lame trim. Under certain lighting conditions ( incidentally, the settings, backdrop and lighting effects were all outstanding ), the purple became blue and the gold transformed (as if by reverse alchemy) into silver.
First up was a spirited run through "Wipeout" which gave everyone an opportunity to show off their respective 'chops'. Great fun. The brisk tempo was maintained with a high-speed romp through "This Old House", sticking faithfully to Hank's version from "Hits Right Up Your Street".
There are some tricky runs and passages in its neo - Rockabilly/R'n'R styling - all of these were dispatched with some aplomb. Even more impressive was a mighty performance of "Moonlight Shadow". Again, this is a difficult piece to pull off effectively, so it's further testament to Zoe's confidence and abilities that she did so with style.
Zoe's also doing her own stage announcements and she informed the audience that: "We'd like to slow things down a little now with the lovely 'Blue Star' from the Shadows' first album." With The Reflections again providing outstanding backing, Zoe's delicate, plangent tone showcased a beautifully sustained quietly intensive dynamic and controlled phrasing. Simply gorgeous playing.
Time to rock out again with an emphatic "Sacha". It's been great to hear this superb melody played more frequently in recent years. Good programming too, as "Sacha" gives Zoe the opportunity to demonstrate a more aggressive, almost distorted even, style of playing. She's beginning to stamp her own personality on some of these tracks. Technically, her playing is very assured.
Now she's beginning to add that extra dimension of somehow going beyond mere notes. At this point, I stop and remind myself that this girl has only just turned fourteen years of age. All of the attention, and therefore pressure also is on her young shoulders. There are many in the audience, fans and players, who know every note, subtlety and nuance of every tune.
There could be a great weight of expectation. I recall Hank saying to me that he would never have undertaken his first solo tour without Brian Bennett being on drums. His point was that there had nearly always been four Shads sharing the spotlight/pressure. Even though a lot focused on the lead player, there were others to share the burden with. Here, all of the attention rests squarely on young Zoe.
Unperturbed, she pays tribute to Jerry Lordan and a cracking version of "Mustang" follows. It's a splendid recreation of the original. This is immediately followed by the immortal "Apache" and a sparkling "Diamonds" (pardon the pun). Jet has made "Theme From Something Really Important" his own in recent years and Zoe's performance also did full justice to the track.
Rob Bradford
