Our first contribution to the Skegness festival (which was sold out this year) was to play our traditional pre jam session set. It was great to see so many people in the venue early on the Saturday afternoon. And the whole set was played to fantastic support from the crowd. We opened with a storming ‘Too Tired To Pray’ (out of the 8 songs put up by people on Youtube, this is the one I’ve had put in the video section of this website).

  Ria Hallwood made an excellent Skegness debut, impressing many people with her great tone. It was great to have Suzie.D back in what was a 3 girl line up. Suzie always gives the vocals a professional smoothness and musiciality, great job. The picture I’ve put up here by the talented photographer Steve Dulien, gives a real sense of the great atmosphere of the afternoon.

One of the highlights of the set was the debut of the new song ‘I Can’t Say No’ (which is not an autobiographical lament – honestly!). We’ve great hopes for the song!!!

After an encore we were into the jam and at this point there was the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen in JAKS. the que to talk to me and sign up for the jam went from the merchandise table across the stage area and close to the entrance. In a mad 10 minute spell, I managed to sign up over 40 great

The Roadhouse Ladies - 'Its the jam and we can have a rest'

musicians.  Over 65 people played in the jam and the overall talent and standard of playing was great. Far too many people to mention all, but it was great to see Carlos play so well. Gizmo made a great contribution to two sets and Sharon from the Blues Bar in Harrogate delivered her great version of ‘Stormy Monday’. It was lovely to get Maggie back up on stage, especially as she had delivered a great set on that stage on the Friday night. Also Sue of BBC fame delivered some vocals that were straight from the soul. The fact that there were 7 harp players kept me on my organisational toes, but I’m pleased to say that by the end all but less than a handful of people got to play.

So many people came up to me over the weekend and told me how the jam was the pinnacle of the festival for them. I am so proud of how many people really have come to love it so much. As long as we have the invitation Roadhouse and I will carry on running the jam as we believe in giving something back to the people.

What a great afternoon

Gary

It was an honour and a priviledge to play as the House Band at Philip Guy Davies annual Xmas extravaganza. This great club, run at the back of the Bullingdon in Oxford stares down the rescession and puts on top class music on Monday nights.

We were orginally scheduled to play this event in 2010, but the artic conditions put paid to that idea. This time out we were just fighting against residual December dampness. First we played a really ‘Go fo it’ styled first hour. We opened with Tellin Lies and blasted our way through a very well received 60 minutes, complete with encore.

The format then changed to us providing back line and whatever musical support was required to an entire array of talent that Philip had put together. It was great to see first hand the much vaunted Cherry Lee Mewis (most of the Band going on to catch her set at JAKS in the Skegness festival). Also on the play list were our own legends Jules & Lorna. They dynamic duo were well backed by Bill & Roger and were on top form. I only have to here the tone of that slide guitar and the force of that voice and a whole tribe of memories come running back, top notch stuff…..

On tour in Holland

The amazing 3rd Degree Le Burn toted some amazing guitar and there were other great musicians there to numerous to mention.

I managed to MC the whole thing to finish on time (Just about!). I think all there had one to remember!

A great night

Gary

Skegness 2012 was a major succes for the Band….

We played an opeining set before the jam to a large crowd in ‘JAKS’ and received an amazing response. In the words of DJ /Critic and all round live blues man, Clive Rawlings, “Thats the best I’ve ever seen you”

We/I then ran the Festival Jam Session. The jam itself was amazing this year, with the que for signing up to play stretching nearly across the whole venue. The quality of what people did at the JAM was exceptional and it was without doubt the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen in JAKS. A major thanks to the Butlins staff and especially the soundcrew who were outstanding under the pressure of all the multiple change overs. So many people came up over the course of the festival weekend and said the Jam is the event of the weekend for them. There was even a rumour that I amy not be running one next year, the answer to that is while there is breath in my body and Roadhouse are on the bill, I will keep on running the Jam….its so great to bring musicians together in that way…

Finally  JAKS was opened for the first time on a Sunday night.  An amazing thanks to Alan Pearce and all at Blues Matters for arranging  great music the entire w/nd at JAKS and securing live music there on a Sunday.

I feared a small crowd but so many thanks to you all for a massive turn out. We lost a few people when the Feelgoods came onto Centre Stage and a few more when the venue had a blip in its supply of bitter. However a monumental 90 minute set flew by and in the end I had to miss out 2 songs. We only repeated one song from the Saturday performance and I felt proud of ust how well the entire band played and sang.  Thanks for being there, so many of you…. YOU PEOPLE ARE AMAZING AND WE’LL PLAY ON BECAUSE OF YOUR GREAT SUPPORT.

Full gig reports to follow across this weekend

Gary

What I like about festivals is the diversity of the music and bands. What followed next was a full-on twin guitar assault, as close to Southern Boogie as you can get north of the Thames Delta!. I am referring of course, to Gary Boner’s Roadhouse, complete with old mucker Danny Gwilym on the other side of the stage. Add Mandie.G on the vocals, Bill Hobley on bass and Roger Hunt on drums, into the mix you have a stunning set of original material, save the amazing rendition of ‘Roadhouse Blues’.

So onto our famous, annual Xmas bash at the Bulls Head. Gail force winds and pouring rain made travel conditions trecherous, which took the edge off of what was a very respectable sized crowd.

With an all star cast of friends appearing on the night, the weather cost us the amazing Jules and Lorna Fothergill, however, the late addition of Drew Barron to the bill went a good way to making up for that.  First up was the amazing Drew, playing with the legendary Dr Noel Brown. Both guitarists having survived a 4 year spell in Roadhouse they, along with John Scott on the bass gave us a great opening set.

The amazing talent came and went, with more incredible music from Robin Bibi, John O’Leary, Pete Sargeant, Tim Matthewman on the bass, the crowd rose up to these amazing performers.

The Roadhouse set demonstrated how much Ria Hallwood has grown into her role of Roadhouse vocalist. Her voice is deep, powerful and so many people commented on her gorgeous tone, for many she really stole the night.

Joining us for her first ever version of ‘The Big Easy’ was Rachel Clark. Rachel joined Mandie on the vocals for a nice version of ‘Slip Away’ in which Danny played  a great solo. Bill and Roger held the whole set together. A special thanks to Roger who drummed the whole night away!.

The set list was thrown out of the window due to demands from the audience for ‘Dark Angel’. I’m pleased to say that we did the song some justice and I was personally pleased with my guitar solo…….

A cast of thousands occupied the stage to finish the night (brilliantly managed by John O’Leary)….Merry Xmas to all the lovely people who made the effort to come to this show, they were not dissapointed…

Gary

Current News – As at 22nd December 2011

Three great performances at major festivals in August, where we really delivered at the Cambridge Rock Festival, Rythm Festival and Merton Abbey Mills. One great consequence of these performances is that expert and well known Publicist, James.H.Soars  http://jameshsoars.com/ picked up the promotion of Dark Angel, which had a complete launch to UK and some European press and radio over September – November. This has lead to many high street reviews and extensive radio play across the UK and Europe.

Thanks to all who came to our geat launch of the new limited edition DVD, Centre stage, at the Boom Boom Club Sutton FC on the 23rd October.  A great night and one of Roadhouse’s best ever performances. Special thanks to ace promoter Pete Feenstra…..

We have now completed our Xmas special gigs at the Bulls Head Barnes and the Bullingdon Oxford. and they were brilliant!

A slight set back is the news that we will not be on the main stage this year at the Skegness Festival in January. Apparently, some people have complained that we have been too favoured in our run of 8 years of big stage performances. We know a lot of you go to Skegeness primarily to see our big stage performance, so please complain to Butlins if you are unhappy about this.

In compensation we will do a set before (as usual running the jam ) on the Saturday afternoon and then will play a 90 minute set on the JAKS stage on Sunday evening at 20.00. This means that we will be performing the longest of any Band at the festival by a long chalk. We want to see our friends, so pop by say hello. Your support would be wonderful.

Danny and I are working on new material and (at least) two songs should be ready for Skeggy..

Keep the Faith

Gary

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Our first time back at this nice venue since we played here in February as part of the annual Broadstairs Blues bash. This was a welcome invitation to return, especially as we have been asked to play in the festival again in 2012 and will be appearing back here on the 17th February 2012.

A massive thanks to Geoff for all his hard work in arranging our return. He also ensured that the band were well fed and watered at this friendly venue.

New releases of note included ‘Dark Angel’ (Cross Border Records) by Roadhouse. This occupies the ground between Americana, Southern Rock and the Blues, and is an unusually dark and spooky album that shows just why the Band has a strong following among UK Blues-Rock lovers. (www.roadhousegb.co.uk)

Bearing in mind the newspaper, website and video based publiciy that had gone on before this event, we really hoped to do better than the 50 paying punters and 70 plus people being in the room for this show .  As usual we decked out the tables with candles and food to give the place both a Blues Club and party feel…

Support came in the way of a great acoustic set from Ramond Goose…A bit of a closet Roadhouse fan, he ellicited a great response from the crowd.

It was our 20th-21st anniversary depending on who’s stats you read and interpretation of events you believe. We launched our new DVD (Limited Edition) Centre Stage, featuring our live set on the main stage at this years Butlins Skegness Blues Rock Weekend to around 2,ooo plus people.

A massive thanks to all who came out on this Sunday night…. how many times can you see your fave (or one of your fave bands ) play, has now become a bit of an issue for us old timers. If you were not there you missed some classic material, ‘Slip Away’, Voodoo Queen’  and others interlaced with the best bits of the Dark Angel tour. My personal fave was a killer version of ‘Dark Angel’ itself. Our new Singer Ria Hallwood did a great job and received a terrific response from the crowd.

At the end Pete Feenstra was up on stage making us take a bow and that has not happened before. The Band were very, very good on the night. A massive thanks to Pete (Feenstra) and Eric (Harvey) for believing in the quality of Bands and songs and not selling their souls totally to the  false gods of Tribute……

Thanks to all

Gary