The Shadows first visited Japan in 1967 in the course of a much-publicised eight-week tour (Spain including Majorca, Israel, Turkey, Australia, Japan, Hawaii and Las Vegas). Between 19–29 June (with breaks on 25/28 June) they played dates in Shizuoka, Tokyo x 2, Yokohama, Tokyo x 2, Osaka, Toyuma and Nagoya.
Ticket stub for Tokyo concert 24 June 1967
The set-list, which included a number of Japanese favourites, was (* denotes vocals): Shazam! / Dance On! / Don’t Make My Baby Blue* / Let It Be Me* / Apache / Nivram / In The Mood / Bombay Duck / Mary Anne* / A Little Bitty Tear* / Green, Green Grass Of Home* / Foot Tapper / Shadoogie / Spring Is Nearly Here / The Rise And Fall Of Flingel Bunt; the encore comprised: Somewhere / Little 'B' / FBI.
The support acts were The Wild Ones and The Savage, the latter as the name indicates a Shadows tribute-band.
The day before the first concert, The Shadows had appeared live on TV, transmitted on Tokyo Channel 12. Never officially released, a fan recording of this programme has survived; quality is tolerable, with the odd dropout and some mains hum. Very much to the fore throughout is John Rostill's authoritative bass accompaniment. APACHE is taken at a fair lick, as it was often later in the 1960s and sometimes before that. The Japanese compère quizzes a suitably formal Bruce Welch, who talks among other things of presents of "happi coats" from The Shadows Fan Club. This leads into DANCE ON!, set off by some punchy rhythm guitar accompaniment. NIVRAM, another number which motors along, attracts a robust solo from John Rostill, marred somewhat by that tiresome nursery-rhyme interpolation which not surprisingly passes right over the heads of the studio audience: lucky them. SPRING IS NEARLY HERE was bound to go down well, being one of the numbers that Japan really took to heart. A swinging FOOT TAPPER closes a nice set.
Of the numbers played by The Shadows on tour, only BOMBAY DUCK had a Japanese connection; but the group capitalised on their visit when they returned home by recording a number of Japanese / Japanese-related compositions and releasing in November 1967 an Album designed solely for that country, The Shadows In Japan. As it happened, Columbia had actually recorded one of the above shows for a live Album presumably with the Japanese market in mind, but the project came to nothing. A pity, because when the omission was rectified upon the visit of a different Shadows line-up in 1969, the unspeakably poor Sankei Hall, Tokyo show of 12 October was recorded and released, in Japan and continental Europe, as an LP The Shadows Live In Japan.
Here are some Japanese LPs with obi strips, which are explained in the second paragraph of THIS LINK.
