Gerry & The Pacemakers 50th Anniversary World Tour

[yerblues1968]

Gerry and The Pacemakers, Gerry (in the center) with Les Chadwick, Arthur McMahon
and his brother Fred Marsden.


GERRY & THE PACEMAKERS - 50TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR


voxy.co.nz
10 December 2008



10 DECEMBER 2008 - It's been 10 years since Gerry & The Pacemakers last toured New Zealand - much to the delight of their adoring fans and this time will be even more special. Gerry is celebrating 50 years since he formed the group that rivaled THE BEATLES in their early career and they're inviting our own Mr. Rock n' Roll, SHANE CORTESE to join the band.



Gerry & The Pacemakers in 1963


50 years ago in 1959 Gerry Marsden formed the group with his brother, Fred, Les Chadwick and Arthur McMahon. They rivaled the Beatles early in their career, playing in the same areas of Hamburg, Germany and at the famed Cavern Club in Liverpool, England.



Gerry and The Pacemakers performing at the Cavern Club in Liverpool.


The band was the second to sign with Brian Epstein, who later signed them with Columbia Records (a sister label to The Beatles label Parlophone under EMI). They began recording in early 1963 with How Do You Do It?, a song written by Mitch Murray that Adam Faith had turned down and one that The Beatles chose not to release (they did record the song but chose to release their own song Please Please Me). The song was produced by George Martin and became a number one hit in the UK, until being replaced at the top by From Me to You, The Beatles' third single.





Gerry and The Pacemakers' next two singles, Murray's I Like It and Rodgers and Hammerstein's You'll Never Walk Alone, both also reached number one in the UK Singles Chart. Never before had the first three singles by a performer all reached the top spot (the feat would not be bettered until The Spice Girls did it in the 90's). In the halcyon days of 1963 Gerry & The Pacemakers enjoyed the status of being one of Britain's most popular bands and were on tour with The Beatles as well as topping bills in their own right. You'll Never Walk Alone had been a favourite of Gerry Marsden's since seeing Carousel growing up. It soon became the signature tune of Liverpool Football Club. To this day, the song remains a football anthem, there and elsewhere, a phenomenon due to Gerry Marsden, rather than its Broadway composers.



Ferry Cross The Mersey 45 record


Despite this early success, Gerry & The Pacemakers never had another number one single in the UK. Gerry Marsden began writing most of their own songs, including It's Gonna Be All Right, I'm the One, and Ferry Cross the Mersey, as well as their first and biggest U.S. hit, Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying, which peaked at #4.



"Ferry Cross The Mersey" movie poster




Video clip of Gerry & The Pacemakers performing
"Ferry Cross the Mersey" in their 1965 movie. (3:44 minutes)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJcjrxp1XiM




A later color video clip of Gerry & The Pacemakers performing
"Ferry Cross the Mersey" from their 1965 movie. (2:38 minutes)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M0nePM6eP0


They also starred in an early 1965 film called Ferry Cross the Mersey (sometimes referred to as "Gerry & The Pacemakers' version of A Hard Day's Night), for which Marsden wrote much of the soundtrack. The title song was revived in the 1980s as a charity single for a ferry disaster appeal, giving Gerry another British number one in association with other Liverpool stars, including Paul McCartney and Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Holly Johnson. Additionally You'll Never Walk Alone hit the No. 1 spot in the 1980's when rerecorded by Gerry and a celebrity ensemble to raise money for the Bradford Football Club's stadium fire disaster.



The entrance to the Shankly Gates at
Anfield Stadium, Liverpool, England.


Gerry still tours regularly in the UK where he headlines 60's tours at such prestigious venues as The Royal Albert Hall and London Palladium, the US where he is still a popular draw card, Asia and Australia where he regularly tours. This tour represents his first back to New Zealand since 1998 and with it marking his 50th anniversary since founding The Pacemakers and a decade since his last visit. The 66 year old is still feeling at the top of his game when he hits the stage and can't wait to perform for his kiwi fans again.

Hits include: Ferry Cross The Mersey, I Like It, You'll Never Walk Alone, How Do You Do It, Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying, I'll Be There.




Gerry & The Pacemakers sing "Ferry Cross The Mersey"
at The Top of The Pops Show in 1965. (2:42 minutes)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=08083BNaYcA




Gerry & The Pacemakers sing "I Like It." (2:11 minutes)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOYOJAczH0k




Gerry & The Pacemakers sing "You'll Never Walk Alone." (2:41 minutes)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zy3CeI0FCY




Gerry & The Pacemakers perform "You'll Never Walk Alone"
at Wembley Stadium in 1989. (2:56 minutes)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ken104pcV2k




Gerry & The Pacemakers sing "How Do You Do It?" (1:51 minutes)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zs7OtsvvT4




Gerry & The Pacemakers sing "I'll Be There." (3:06 minutes)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYV7Q5SoL3M




Gerry & The Pacemakers were the New Musical Express (NME) Poll Winners in 1964 concert.
Here they sing "I Like It, I'm The One, and Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying." (8:19 minutes)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7_ngRUVzq8



TOUR DATES


AUCKLAND, SKY CITY THEATRE March 26th

HAMILTON, FOUNDERS THEATRE March 27th

NEW PLYMOUTH, TSB SHOWPLACE March 28th

PALMERSTON NORTH, REGENT ON BROADWAY March 29th

DUNEDIN, REGENT THEATRE March 31st

CHRISTCHURCH, JAMES HAY THEATRE April 2nd

ASHBURTON, ASHBURTON TRUST EVENTS CENTRE April 3rd

WELLINGTON, OPERA HOUSE April 5th.


www.voxy.co.nz/entertainment/gerry-amp-pacemakers-50th-anniversary-tour/5/6416

[yerblues1968]

GERRY MARSDEN TOURS AUSTRALIA



heraldsun.com.au
Alan Howe


March 16, 2009 12:00am



IT will be two decades next month since the dreadful crush at the Hillsborough football ground in Yorkshire in which 96 Liverpool fans died.

The game had just started and thoughtless local police, wishing to have the Liverpool fans off their street, hurriedly ushered them in to the stadium which then had cage barriers to prevent pitch invasions.

It was an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.

There had been problems with crowd control and surges at the ground, but no one took enough notice.

As the hundreds of fans were funnelled in - with no way out - those at the front were trapped in what became Britain's worst soccer tragedy.

The harrowing images of children pressed fatally against the wire is, quite rightly, seldom shown.

For one Liverpool fan, it was almost a case of deja vu.

Gerry Marsden had reworked his hit You'll Never Walk Alone with some famous friends as a fund-raiser after the Bradford City football ground fire in 1985 that killed 56 fans.



Bradford City Football Club Memorial by Joachim Reisner
unveiled May 11, 1986.


Four years later an even worse tragedy unfolded.

"I was in the garden and a neighbour shouted 'Gerry, have you been watching telly' and that was how I found out about Hillsborough," says the irrepressible Gerry, now 66 and touring Australia.

Gerry knew music could help, like it did at the weekend with the Sound Relief concerts in Melbourne and Sydney that raised millions for the bushfire appeal.

The most successful songwriter of all time, Paul McCartney, is on record as saying he wishes he had written Gerry's Ferry Cross The Mersey, and they are old mates from Liverpool and Hamburg days when Gerry's Pacemakers and McCartney's band the Beatles worked eight hours a night on stages in the German port city.

"I rung McCartney, and called Holly Johnston (of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, who also had covered Gerry's song) - and we thought Liverpool, let's do Ferry.

"It went back to number one, the first time anyone had been to number one twice (with the same song)."

All up the song and associated activities raised about $40 million.

When Gerry goes home - he still lives in Liverpool - he will start work on another song "for the people who have survived Hillsborough".

So how does it feel to have had your home town fans adopt You'll Never Walk Alone as their footy anthem.

"I still get goose pimples, the hair stands up with the crowd singing," Gerry told me at the weekend.

His band, which beat by weeks the Beatles to the number one spot with How Do You Do It, was also managed by the Beatles' famed fifth member, Brian Epstein.



Brian Epstein chatting with singers Dusty Springfield and Gerry Marsden.
Photo linked from Eppylover's Flickr account.


Epstein called Gerry to say there had been a film written by Tony Warren, the gifted young screenwriter whose most recent success was Coronation Street.

"And he said could you write the music - about 14 songs."

Gerry sought out his girlfriend, now wife, Pauline, for help.

"We went to see the ferries coming in to try to get some inspiration. But I couldn't get an idea.

"Then one night Pauline and I were going for dinner and we are driving and suddenly in my head comes the melody (he hums the gently unforgettable first notes of his most famous song).

"I pulled the car in by a phone box and called home.

``Me mum answered the phone and I said 'mam, please don't talk to me, just get my little tape recorder and press play, that's the black button, and record, that's the red button, coz I've an idea for a song'.

"She called out 'Fred' to me dad, he's in the kitchen. 'It's Gerry, he's got an idea for a song'."

His parents pressed the right buttons and their son hummed those now famous notes into the phone.

"I said 'thanks, dad'.

"He said 'that's not a song!' "

You can make up your own mind about whether it is a song or not next Saturday night when Gerry and the Pacemakers sing it, and all his other hits, at the Palms at Crown.


www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25191224-5000117,00.html