The Zombies at the Jazz Cafe

The Jazz Cafe is a short walk from Camden Town tube station, it's a Wednesday in mid May and we're queuing up because we have tickets to see a band - The Zombies. We're on the early side but the venue begins to build, we bump into a couple of AFC Wimbledon supporters, and fill the time till the band come on at 9pm.

The Zombies were one of the first wave of British bands after the breakthrough of the Beatles. There most well known "hit" ' She's not there' dates from 1965. After the cult album Odyssey and Oracle in 1967 (with the successful single, Time of the Season) the Zombies drifted away.

Members reemerged, keyboard player Rod Argent fronted his own band and had a number of rock anthem singles during the 1970s, meanwhile vocalist Colin Blunstone released a number of solo offerings, and had what I'd describe as radio hits. The song "Say you don't mind" has kept Blunstone on my radar for best part of 40 years.

The band play two sets of over an hour a piece, the musician and sound quality is excellent. During the evening Rod Argent explains that a blue plaque has just been erected outside the pub in St Albans where the band first met to reherse in 1961. At the moment I realise that the founding members are now approach sixty seven years of age. Yet they still perform with enthusiasm and vigour.

The whole evening is a tribute to the enduring nature of rock music, the band and the audience have lived life but still are prepared to come out and play or listen to songs that filled their youth or early adulthood. As Colin Blunstone hit the high notes,the sight of a great singer still on form, lifted my spirits no end.