It’s the end of a 60-year journey, but not the end of the line
GORDON HALSALL founding member of Southport’s most enduring band, The Sandgrounders, has told of the band’s big farewell gig.
They played their official retirement show at the Atkinson last month, marking the end of a 60-year journey.
Although they will play a final, smaller, show on New Year’s Eve, the Atkinson gig marked the last big opportunity for the town to see the band that cut their teeth on the same stages as The Beatles.
Gordon said: “It went superb, it couldn’t have been better.
“Everything went like clockwork, everybody that left the auditorium was absolutely over the moon with it.
“As a retirement gig it couldn’t have gone any better, we still have one or two to do but that was the main one, to let people know that the end of the Sandgrounders is coming after 60 years.”
Gordon is the last remaining member of the original line-up, and has been a part of the band for six decades.
He said: “Two of them have died, the original line-up was Norman Hardy, John Carey – who came up from Buckinghamshire to the show so he’s still knocking about – Geoff Dean the drummer, he’s passed away, and myself.
“We were all round about the same age, Geoff was about two years younger than us, he was 15 and the rest of us were 17.”
Guitarist Gordon reeled in Paul Robert Mullen, Eric Wainwright, Keith Livingstone and Ramzi Merchergui to join him on stage, in addition to two special guests.
“Because it was so important, I looked for top people who had either been in the band before or I knew as friends.
“Then we had two really great guests on, Steve McKenna and Gerry San- don, so they made the line-up of the show.”
Substitute Sandgrounder Paul added: “They came on and did about seven or eight songs each, Gerry Sandon is a specialist Shadows instrumentalist so he did the instrumentals with Gordon.
“Steve McKenna came on and did quite a bit with me because me and him have played together for about 20 years.”
The Sandgrounders modelled themselves on The Shadows in the early days, before adding vocals.
They rubbed shoulders with The Beatles in the early days, when they were playing the Southport circuit. Gordon said: “We played with The Beatles in 1963, just as they released Love Me Do. We played twice with them in a two-month spell in Southport.
“There was a venue, the Queen’s Hotel Ballroom, right opposite the theatre, it’s flats now but it used to be a hotel with a big ballroom.
“What they used to do on a Thursday night was bring in bands from around Merseyside and Manchester.
“They used us as a local band to support them, we were cheap and just did a 30 or 40-minute slot before they came on.
“We did it with quite a lot of the bands, Freddie & The Dreamers, Billy-J Kramer & The Dakotas, we worked with all of them because we were the local band.
“We didn’t like The Beatles, there was only Ringo who was a genuine person, he was the one who sat in the residents bar when we’d all finished, drinking rum and blacks.
“He was the only one that was sociable.
“They even came in and used our equipment.
“They probably thought, because they were headlining everywhere that they’d be the band of the century which they turned out to be of course, don’t get me wrong, but at that time they were just scruffy Liverpudlians.”
The Sandgrounders didn’t realise then quite how far their peers would go.
Gordon continued: “The only regret I ever had is that we didn’t place any importance on it, it was just another gig, another turnout.
“To keep advertising or ticket stubs or anything never crossed our mind.
“It’s only in recent years that a guy in Germany is doing research into Beatles history and he sent me a copy of a ticket, obviously well worn, but you could make out The Sandgrounders on it with The Beatles.
“I’ve only ever seen one.”
While music changed, Gordon believes that The Sandgrounders refusal to move away from their roots is what allowed them to go on for as long as they have.
“The 1970s were a bad decade for ’60s bands, synthesizers started coming in, music changed and became more studiobased rather than live.
“In the ’80s there was a bit of a revival, the ’90s we kicked in again, but the important thing is that it’s 60 years since I started playing this ’60s stuff and it’s stood us in good stead.”
Paul added: “There’s a market for them, ’60s music is timeless, and the ’50s.
“I think even in 100 years time there’ll still be people wanting to come and hear stuff like The Shadows and The Beatles, and Chuck Berry – who basically invented rock ’n’ roll.
“It’s music that I like, I’m not a product of my own generation, I’ve always loved the early stuff.
“To play in a band like this has been a challenge for me because I’ve had to go back and learn it all.
“It’s music that I love but it’s not music that I would choose to play.
“There’s a simplicity about it which is genius, you can’t build a house without foundations and without this music there wouldn’t be Led Zeppelin, there wouldn’t be Eric Clapton, or Cream or The Rolling Stones.
“Fifty per cent of the stuff we played at this gig was pre-1965, so you’re talking 20 years before I was born.
“It’s an art form in itself to reproduce that Shadows stuff authentically.
“They’re not just instrumentals they’re soundscapes, stuff like Apache you feel like you’re rolling through the desert in the wild west when you hear it, they’re just incredible soundscapes. So to reproduce it authentically with all the same sounds, it’s incredibly complex music.”
Paul has played in places from Churchtown to China, but said he had never experienced anything like The Atkinson on October 6.
“I would describe it as electric, I’ve done a lot of work musically over the last 20 years but there was something about it, it was electric.
“The audience totally engaged.
“To see the reaction, it’s not every day you get to play a venue like that.
“I played some stuff like that in China, funnily enough, but it was quite intimidating because I was more like a zoo animal, the foreigner on the stage. I played to 5,000 people in China – ridiculous – I walked out on a stage and couldn’t see the back of the theatre.
“But this was intimate, classy and emotional.”
Gordon’s wife, Ellen, died in May, and the night was featured a touching tribute to her.
Paul said: “One of the things, what Gordon has been through this year losing Ellen, part of the reason why it was such an incredible night was because one of the songs we did as a tribute.
“The people in there said that it was such a great show was because we had them laughing, we had them crying, it was a journey in a way.
“So it’s not been an easy year, this was a bit of a high in among a few lows.
“Now he’s thinking about doing a gig for his 80th birthday in two years, as Gordon Halsall & friends.”
Gordon insists he is not ready to fully retire yet, despite his band officially hanging up their strings.
“I said to Paul coming off stage that we’ll never match that.
“But you never know. Gordon & Friends in 2020, we may. You can always strive to get better can’t you?”