The Shadows finally fade into the night

Today, even though they have not recorded or toured for over a decade, their style is still instantly recognisable.

Now, together again for one last time, the legendary Shadows - Hank Marvin, Bruce Welch and Brian Bennett - are due to perform for legions of dedicated fans at the Playhouse on Monday, the third gig in a gruelling 37-date tour.

"We will have to get into training," laughs Welch, "it’s a tough schedule on the road."

The Shadows began their career as Cliff Richard’s backing band in 1958. Cliff and the Drifters, as they were then, brought the first stirrings of rock’n’roll from America to the UK.

Welch and Marvin, now both 62, met at school when they were 11: "Hank wore those little NHS glasses," says Welch, recalling how, at the age of 16, the pair left their home town of Newcastle for London, determined to be pop stars. Once there, Marvin was approached to play with an unknown singer called Cliff Richard.

"He said: ‘I’ll do it if my mate can come’," adds Welch. "It was amazing. Everything happened so quickly. We partied as 16 and 17-year-olds did in those days - there were no drugs, I didn’t drink until I was 21. As far as women went, we were 16 and made it up as we went along. There were always girls and they were all in love with Cliff. We exploited that.

"They had no chance of getting to Cliff, because he wasn’t rushing around sleeping with 100 women. He was as conscious of image then as he is today."

Brian Bennett replaced Tony Meehan as the Shadows’ drummer in 1961. He too has fond memories of those early days. "Great memories," he corrects, ". . . good times, bad times, like any other group of people working together for so long, we change."

While continuing to perform with Cliff, The Drifters soon decided to try stepping out on their own. They became The Shadows and in June 1960 entered Abbey Road Studios to record Apache - a track that was to become the instrumental hit of the decade.

Apache made Number 1, became an instant classic and was the start of a string of more than 30 hits - including another four No 1s - Wonderful Land, Kon-Tiki, Dance On and Foot Tapper.

Apache was also responsible for inspiring a new generation of artists such as Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend of The Who and Queen’s Brian May to take up the guitar.

Even Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler once admitted: "When I was a kid, all I wanted was a red electric guitar. It had to be red because of Hank and his magical sound."

Welch remembers: "By the 1960s we were having hit after hit. I co-wrote Summer Holiday, Bachelor Boy, Please Don’t Tease and we had this superstar who recorded everything we wrote."

Despite all their success, on December 1, 1990, due to growing tensions within the band, The Shadows split, playing what they thought was to be their final gig. Welch reflects that they never had the chance say goodbye to their fans properly - until now.

It was lifetime fan Roger Field, a friend of Marvin and Welch, who convinced them to get back together for one final tour. "You can’t get the Beatles back together, so the Shadows are the next best thing," he said.

Field, who lives in Germany, spent three years trying to convince them. He said Marvin’s first response was: "It’ll never happen". And it did seem unlikely - Marvin and Welch hadn’t seen each other for 14 years and things had ended on a sour note.

Welch admits he’d been upset at the way things had ended. "We’d had a fantastic year - the album had gone platinum and the tour was sold out. Then Hank sent a fax saying he didn’t have any more enthusiasm for The Shadows. I felt very hurt. People think we had a punch-up, we didn’t. We just stopped speaking."

At the end of last year, Marvin called Welch and suggested they "should put the lid on The Shadows properly". Welch agreed, as did Bennett who admits: "I’m looking forward to the new tour very much because now we don’t have to prove anything. We just play the way we want to, relaxed and comfortable with each other."

But Field’s success may have gone to his head. He claims his next project is to get Sir Cliff Richard - who is due to play two dates at Edinburgh Castle in July - to perform again with his old band. "I was happy to get The Shadows back together, that was the main thing, but this is just the beginning," he insisted.

It’s something Marvin has thought about too. In an interview two years ago he commented: "People keep talking about Cliff and the Shads perhaps doing something together. Well, there are still no plans for anything, I want to emphasise that, but you just never know. What might be out of the question today is not necessarily going to be that way in 12 months’ time. So something of that nature could happen."

Earlier this year, however, Welch, who doesn’t seem to have forgiven Sir Cliff for the way he sacked him as his record producer, appeared to quash any real hope of a reunion.

HE said: "We’d done three albums together when I got the elbow. Cliff didn’t have the decency to tell me to my face. I believe in loyalty, but a lot of people don’t. I told Cliff that what he’d done was out of order. I’m astonished at people who do something to hurt you but can’t handle it when you tell them what you think. I’ve no beef with Cliff now. I’m not part of his life and he’s not part of mine. He’s like a horse with blinkers on. It’s ‘Me, my career and I’."

Bennett, on the other hand, like Marvin, rules nothing out. As he prepares to travel north, he says: "If Cliff is performing near to us, yes, of course we will go to see him and when we are performing near him he will probably come and see us.

"He may even get up and sing a couple of songs - after all, he was our vocalist!"

Time to practise that famous box-step, Sir Cliff.

• The Playhouse, Greenside Place, 7.30pm, Monday, 20-25, 0870-606 3424