From: Shadsfax Issue 48 (2005) 6–7
The Shadows
"The Final Collection"
EMI Music Netherlands 0946 3114670 1 [2CD + 1DVD]
Import Released April 2005
CD1 (0946 3114492 9) Apache / Man Of Mystery / The Stranger / FBI / Midnight / The Frightened City / Kon-Tiki / 36–24–36 / The Savage / Peace Pipe / Shadoogie / Quatermasster’s Stores / Wonderful Land / Sleepwalk / Guitar Tango / The Boys / Dance On! / Foot Tapper / Atlantis / Shindig / Geronimo / Shazam! / Theme For Young Lovers / Perfidia
CD2 (0946 3114502 5) Theme From The Deer Hunter / Midnight Cowboy [Hank Marvin] / Mustang / Cosy / Nivram / Little ‘B’ / The Rise And Fall Of Flingel Bunt / Rhythm And Greens / Genie With The Light Brown Lamp / Mary Anne / Stingray / Don’t Make My Baby Blue / The War Lord / I Met A Girl / A Place In The Sun / The Dreams I Dream / Maroc 7 / Slaughter On 10th Avenue / Turn Around And Touch Me / Jungle Jam / Let Me Be The One / Don’t Cry For Me Argentina / Rodrigo’s Guitar Concerto De Aranjuez / Riders In The Sky
DVD (0946 3101869 5) "Live At The National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham": Shadoogie / Time Is Tight / Theme From The Deer Hunter / Equinoxe (Part V) / Wonderful Land / Apache / FBI
According to Dynamite International (June/ July 2005) this set was released by EMI Netherlands "to coincide with the Final Tour". Of course, the only real point of contact between the Tour and this product, Birmingham aside (though the actual venues are different), lies in the use of the term Final, by which EMI will mean, if their intention is to continue trading, Final for the Time Being.
As a 2CD collection it treads a pretty conventional path, most of the programme being taken up with a long run of A-singles (Apache right through to Maroc 7, and seven later ones) interspersed with seven B-sides, a couple of EP items and a random selection from the tried and trusted first two albums. Then there is Hank’s Midnight Cowboy from 1969, a Dutch favourite. It is the inclusion of a third disc, a DVD of the 1986 Birmingham performance, that is bound to make the set much more desirable, though many will already have the separate DVD release from EMI UK in 2000.
A few remarks on the audio portion. Wonderful Land is the stereo version released in 1990, Foot Tapper is the mono single (good), Midnight is in stereo (not good at all), Theme For Young Lovers is the rogue offering with the mismastered double note at the start, Jungle Jam is clipped at the beginning (synth notes vanish) as it appeared on ‘The First 20 Years’ CD set from 1995, Riders In The Sky is the single not the album version. Stingray is credited to “Guenther Heigel/ Klaus Ogermann” [sic: read rather “Claus Ogerman”]. We now know that Heigel and Ogerman are one and the same person.
MC