WHEN DAVE Grohl was making Foo Fighters’ masterpiece Echoes, Silence, Patience, & Grace he had one thing in mind - to make an album that combined “Nomeansno with Odessey & Oracle”.
That Dave Grohl was inspired to make his finest album, by The Zombies 1968 masterpiece - widely and rightly regarded as one of British pop’s finest and most ambitious albums - is testament to Odessey & Oracle’s enduring influence.
Some 40 years after its creation, two members of The Zombies - vocalist Colin Blunstone and songwriter/keyboardist Rod Argent - will play the Róisín Dubh on Saturday January 24 at 9pm.
On the night the duo will play songs from that classic album, as well as Zombies’ hits like ‘She’s Not There’, solo hits from Colin Blunstone, classic songs by Rod’s 1970s band Argent (expect ‘God Gave Rock’n’Roll To You’ ), and material from the albums the duo have recently recorded together - Out Of The Shadows and As Far As I Can See.
The duo’s show last February was one of the best gigs in Galway in 2008 and another night of quality entertainment can be expected on the January 24 show.
Some time ago I interviewed Colin Blunstone about the phenomena that is Odessey & Oracle.
“I have to keep reminding myself that the album was recorded 40 years ago,” he told me. “The album wasn’t a hit at the time, but about 10 years after it was released it started to get noticed and since then it’s sold a reasonable amount every year. It’s become a bit of a phenomenon.”
Today, Blunstone is proud that Odessey & Oracle is cited by REM, Beck, Tom Petty, and Dave Grohl, as a major inspiration.
“It’s very exciting to know that modern bands take inspiration from something you have been involved in,” he says. “To an extent it validates what we were doing then.”
The album’s best known track is the impossibly cool ‘Time Of The Season’ and Blunstone nominates it as his favourite track. Nonetheless it was not the easiest song to record.
“Rod Argent [who wrote the song] said I wasn’t getting the melodies correct and that I wasn’t singing it as it sounded in his head. So I suggested that if he knew how it was to be done, why didn’t he go sing it himself! He said, quite reasonably, ‘You’re the singer. Stand there until you get it right!’ We used much more colourful language that that so there was tension but that’s a good thing. If you get too comfortable you lose energy.”
Tickets are available from the Róisín Dubh and Zhivago.
