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

  Were there a shortage of sincere, hard-working, rockin’ blues outfits Roadhouse would easily stand head and shoulders above the pack. But if there’s one thing the western world has in abundance it is sincere, hard-working, rockin’ blues outfits – as a random sample of live music bars on a Friday or Saturday night in Anytown USA, UK or Europe will sweatily attest.

Danny and Gary at Abbeyfest

Which means Roadhouse have to add something extra to their blend of supreme musicianship, memorable vocals and sympathetic production to stand out as well as they do. And that something extra comes in the form of dark and twisted blues lyrics, dramatic delivery and enough confidence to climb into the back seat of the blues and still command attention. The opening cut, Too Tired To Pray shakes its tail feather over six action-packed minutes and still only serves as an hors d’ouevre for the main attraction – the Bible black Southern Gothic bluescapes of the title track and its rollicking companion piece, Working Class Gospel Drinking Blues.

Singer Gary Boner conjures the kind of Dantean reverie that both seduces and repels, his incessant rhythm guitar only adding to the gumbo, before giving way to blessed relief courtesy of co-singers Mandie G, Kelly Marie Hobbs and Suzi B who ease the songs into their lead vocal passages with meticulous care. This is Roadhouse at their best and the mix continues to work well on the more conventional Swamp Girl, but starts to wear thin in the stringy lead guitar passages of Rainmaker and Play With Fire, bottoming out on the reedy version of T-Bone Walker’s Stormy Monday.

But if dark-hearted, richly coloured blues is your thing, you’ll have to go some to find a more charismatic vessel than Roadhouse.

Nick Churchill

Roadhouses’s sleeve notes look a little odd, with a line up built on 4 grizzled gigsters and spiced up with a trio of glamourpus female singers in black strappy dresses. It’s a decent blend in practice though and adds a nice blend of sweet and sour on the superior stuff like ‘Swamp Girl’.

'Mandie.G - How Dark is your angel?'

Pete Feenstra interviews Gary Boner (Roadhouse) 14/10/11 for www.getreadytorock.com. It’s the 20th anniversary of Roadhouse who celebrate with the release of a limited edition collectors item DVD of their performance at the Skegness Rock & Blues festival to go alongside their current ‘Dark Angel’ cd.

Thanks to Eric Harvey for filming.

There can be no better occasion than a 20^th anniversary and a packed festival stage to film a band in its pomp.  And this DVD does the trick. Filmed simply as a one camera shoot of Roadhouse’s record breaking 8^th appearance at the 2010 Skegness Rock & Blues Festival, ‘Centre Stage’ is a live document of one of the UK’s hardest working rock/blues band. The camera angle looks down over the front ranks of the packed crowd to catch the essential connection between the band and an enthusiastic crowd as Roadhouse work their way through the meat and potatoes of their current ‘Dark Angel’ album.  

There’s a nice balance between the sparkling solos of the mighty Danny Gwillum stage left – who mixes his scintillating attack with dirt sounding slide – and Gary Boner, stage right, whose fiery licks kick start an impressive succession of self penned songs. And centre stage (no pun intended) is the three girlie triumvirate of Mandy Graham, Kelly Jo Hobbs and Suzie D, who during the course of a high octane performance, dance their way through a frisky routine while shifting between fine harmony singing and backing vocals to singing one lead vocal each.

Roadhouse 'Rock out'

And while the video provides plenty of slinky glamour and showcases a dependable festival band at their best, it is Gary Boner’s songs that hold sway. Most of the material comes from the current ‘Dark Angel’ album, of which ‘Too Tired To Pray’ features the sharply contrasting Boner vocal growl and the female bv’s, neatly offset by some  beautifully nuanced slide from Danny

The following ‘Rainmaker’ is one of their very best efforts with Gary’s whispered vocals over a very strong melody and gospel style backing with a country hue. The slow burning title track ‘Dark Angel’ features an expansive solo from Gary but is ironically slightly hampered by some indifferent camera work.

Suzie D gets her chance to shine on the sleazy ‘Lying Game’, while Kelly shimmies up the mic to make the most of another Boner classic ‘The Big Easy’, complete with twin guitar lines. And just when you’re marvelling at the substance of several superbly arranged songs and great playing, up steps Mandy G to steal the limelight with a raucous version of ‘House of the Rising Sun’. It may not be the most original cover but she brings real raunch and an undoubted visceral edge to the song to grab the audience by their collective lapels and generate real excitement in the packed hall.

It’s left Gary Boner to kick into start a big two song finale with more fiery licks on the dynamic call and response lines of ‘Tellin’ Lies’ and the Skynyrd  meets Classic rock steal that is ‘Preacher Man’

‘Centre stage’ is a fine limited run dvd for the fans but if it should fall into the hands of unsuspecting rock fans they won’t fail to be impressed by a fiercely independent band whose quality material, rock solid rhythm section, consummate playing  and rock blues crossover style will surely win over many more festival audiences in the future. 

**** (4/5)

© Pete Feenstra www.getreadytorock.com