Jim McCarty has overseen several iterations of The Yardbirds, his famous British Invasion band that spawned Hall of Fame guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. The drummer just announced a new 2015 tour, and the lineup will look much different than it did in the '60s: Anthony "Top" Topham joined as a rhythm player in 2013, while John Idan (lead guitar), Myke Scavone (blues harp) and Kenny Aaronson (bass) were just added by McCarty.
The classic Yardbirds lineups included a five-piece and a four-piece.
"The four-piece was much tighter, with a much tighter sound than the five-piece, especially with Jimmy Page," McCarty told DMME last year. "It was much more sort of businesslike - I don't know what the right word would be - it was much more of what was expected, it was steady, but I don't think we quite had the creativity of the five-piece.
"The five-piece with Jeff Beck and Paul Samwell-Smith was a very creative line-up that produced lots of things, like 'Shapes Of Things,' 'Happenings Ten Years Time Ago' and 'Over Under Sideways Down.' The four-piece was good, but it was much better live, and it didn't really work in terms of creating new songs."
Of course, despite its current longevity, the band fell out of the mainstream rock world as the 60s came to a close.
"It was very, very full-on the whole time, gigging for years and years without any time off and it was very exhausting playing pretty much the same repertoire and not really having much time to breathe," McCarty said. "When we did break up, we were all really tired and needed a lot of rest and a lot of healing after all that."
Here are the newly announced tour dates (via Classic Hits and Oldies):
04/03 - Norfolk, CT @ Infinity Hall
04/04 - Uncasville, CT @ Mohegan Sun
04/06 - New York, NY @ B.B. King Blues Club & Grill
04/09 - Bethlehem, PA @ Musikfest Cafe
04/10 - Beverley, MA @ Larcom Theatre
04/11 - Plymouth, NH @ The Flying Monkey
04/12 - Newton, NJ @ The Newton Theatre
