07. ON THE HIGH SEAS
Hope you all had a good February.
I had yet another adventure alongside The Zombies in the seas around the Caribbean on
Justin Hayward’s ‘On the Blue’ cruise.
I would describe it as a floating music festival with fabulous non-stop gigs, fascinating
Q&A’s, performing, art exhibitions, photo sessions, eating, drinking, karaoke (no, I didn’t!),
talking with fans, discovering, beautiful skies and seas, exotic islands, one ocean swim and
a LOT of walking! Everything I needed always seemed to be at the other end of the ship!
Though it is a music cruise, this year it was my great fortune to have a floating art exhibition
on the ship with fellow artist, Terry Quirk. We had lots of interesting encounters with artists,
musicians and fans. We both sold work and both tried to learn a little bit more about social
media from the young experts from Rocks Management(!), and a bigger variety of my
artwork should be available from this website soon.
We both got to meet Roger Dean and hear about his history in the art world as well as
seeing some of his new work - even seeing some in the making!
Of course, The Zombies were performing on the cruise. They are such a great, musically tight band! Always a joy to see and hear. The cruise was just the beginning of their tour around Florida. Original bass player and drummer - Chris White and Hugh Grundy, got on stage to join them for ‘She’s Not There’. I got an unexpected invitation to sing backing vocals with Chris and Hugh for ‘God Gave Rock And Roll To You’. Yay, lucky me! I have to say, the audience were in GREAT voice on both nights! Colin’s solo band gig was fabulous too!
I went to a Steve Hackett gig and rediscovered my love for the album ‘Wind and Wuthering’. I will have to get myself a new copy having lost my old one years ago!
On return to the UK it felt a little like we had flown to Miami, been put on the ship, rushed about, had our brains creatively scrambled and then been spat out back into Miami and put on a plane home! Whirlwind stuff!!
It was great to catch up with The Zombies (Colin, Rod, Steve, Soren and Tom) and the extended Zombies family again - wives, partners, children and friends.
It never ceases to amaze me that the management team (Cindy da Silva and Chris Tuthill - also Cory and Pam), and tour manager (Marya) manage to organise us SO well and always seem to be wherever you need them to be! Sound engineer (Dale) and road crew fab-man (Laurence) also seem to have the knack of being everywhere at once, doing amazing things!
Perhaps they are all a bit magic!
The Zombies will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in New York in March.
Talk to you again after that!