Oldies but Goodies

I’ve got the record somewhere, featuring that song which goes ‘black ees black, I wonn my babi back’, the smash hit for Los Bravos in 1966. Not bad, that, as it was a rare foreign pop group that made the US charts (Nº 4 in the top 100) and the Brits (Nº 2 in the fab fifty, our pop songs always being worth twice as much was theirs). Los Bravos had a German singer, little Micky from Berlin, but the rest came from Spain. Micky was the youngest, born in 1945. He’d be 61 now.
Los Bravos are coming to play a concert in Vera on August 11th. I hope that the concert hall is wheelchair accessible.
Better still, Los Puntos are also billed for the occasion. Los Puntos were a band that produced an endless supply of Beatles-like smasheroos in the mid to late sixties. They came from Cuevas (the next door town to Vera) and still perform on occasion. Pepe Grano de Oro wrote a song (anthem) for Mojácar a few years back.
About ten years ago, while enjoying a rare holiday, I saw Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders on a cruise ship. I think the bassist was a replacement (he still had all his hair), but the rest were very much the original line-up. Wayne wore a hat.
Typically, the group would perform one of their hits (Groovy Kind of Love, The Game of Love and so on...) and then, at its conclusion, would hold on to their instruments for mutual support and attempt to recover their breath. Whoo! Thank goodness songs were only three minutes long in those days! Wayne would tell a joke as the others took their pills. We didn’t care, we knew what it’s like to pant and wheeze.
I hope little Micky from Berlin will be OK up there on the Vera stage, as concerts here tend to start rather late. Los Bravos might be on last, after Jeanette, Tony Ronald, Los Puntos and the rest of them.
Vera August 11th Oldies Concert. Vera bullring from 11.30pm