THE Shadows are saying goodbye next week with a lengthy tour of the UK that calls on Bristol and Cardiff.

Original members Hank Marvin, Bruce Welch and Brian Bennet can be found in the Colston Hall, Bristol, on Thursday, June 3, and Cardiff International Arena on Saturday, June 5.

Hank's hanging up his Strat for good, at least as far as the Shadows are concerned.

In his time with the band that once backed up Cliff Richard, including playing on 35 hits, his style has become instantly recognisable the world over.

Largely thanks to Apache, his clean, twangy and reverberating sound would prick up the ears of millions of music fans with just one note. Hits like that may have dried up, but the Shadows have released an album a year regardless.

Proving the oldies are the best, they've continued to shift millions of units with instrumental cover LPs featuring the likes of Gary Moore's Parissiene Walkways, The Beach Boys' Good Vibrations and Simon and Garfunkle's Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Those tracks can be found on a new 2CD set, also featuring their own hits like Apache, Kon-tiki, Dance On, Atlantis, F.B.I, B sides and album tracks, which has been released to mark the end of the band.

They are Britain's most successful instrumental group and have been a headline draw act for five decades.

From mean and macho guitar plays, though their Cliff years, to quietly strumming nostalgia monkeys, they've become part of the furniture. And before they fall apart completely they're shutting shop to preserve the legend.