One of the best ever Roadhouse Xmas party gigs. a great crowd, a great bunch of guests and a night to remember.

This was our 5th succesive Xmas gig at the Bulls Head, so it is becoming a firm tradition. those of you that have been to one of these fun nights will know that we love to share them with past memebers of the Band and great musical talents that have supported us over the years.

Kelly on stage in Oxford

First up was the excellent Geronimo of Screaming Lord Sutch fame, with John Scott (USA) on bass and our our own Roger Hunt on drums. this was followed by a marvellous set from legendary UK Blues Man, John O’Leary and ex Roadhouse guitar god, Jules Fothergill. Tim Mathewman joined on bass and solo’d really well (he must have played at least 4 solos on the night). Along with our own Rog and Danny on drums and guitar respectively, these guys produced some awesome stuff. Next up was Jimmy Dublin who played a couple of well received songs with ex Roadhouser Funky George on the drums.

At 9.35 it was time for the Roadhouse set. With Sarah dressed as a sexy Santa and Mandie as a Xmas fairy (fully equipped with in dress light show) the stage image was a little different. We opened with a belting ‘No Place to Hide’, much to poor Sarah’s chagrin as she has only ever sung it twice before, followed by ‘Rainmaker’ in which both girls vocal performances went down a storm with the crowd. This was followed by a belting version of the new song ‘Hell On Wheels’ which went down really well. Sarah then sung a great version of ‘The Lying Game’. This was the first time that her family had come to see the show and they really  enjoyed this performance and the overall gig. Mandie sang a killer ‘House of the Rising Sun’ before our special guest Kelly joined us and delivered a storming version of ‘The Big Easy’ and then sang brilliantly with Mandie on ‘Rock Me Baby’. Danny and I had a decent guitar battle in the middle of that one. Talking of guitar, we were then joined by ex Roadhouse guitar god, Jules Fothergill for the last two numbers. ‘Tellin Lies’ was delivered as a kind of Wishbone Ash twin riff thingy and then the encore, Preacher Man decended into some epic Skynyrd style mahem. What a great crowd reaction, I really don’t know where the hour went?

 To finish we had an epic instrumental from Pete Sargeant and Jules followed then by a show stopping couple of numbers from the amazing Robin Bibi. A massive thanks to Pete Feenstra for having us and the wonderful Bob Bonsey for running the night.

A happy Xmas to all our friends and heres to rocking in 2013

Gary

Well this was our 7th gig since our return from the enforced sabbatical. All had been brilliant, but the run came to an end here.

The last time we played this club probably about 25 Roadhouse supporters came (plus a good few locals) from pretty long distances to see us play a rare gig in this part of the world. Well not having gone North at all since our return, I thought it would be a good idea to stay in touch with people even if with the petrol involved, this gig would cost us money.

Bad decision, as it turned out. I remember the room (a modern concrete sports hall with a high stage) being a bit poor for sound.  As we arrived the memories came rushing back and no matter what volume we set things at things were out of proportion in different parts of the room. Apparently the promoter, Alan Robson, usually puts up a curtain to stop a bit of the sound bounce, but he was full of flu and obviously didn’t have the energy.

Well the good news, about 15 Roadhouse supporters came (plus some locals) and we saw quite a few special freinds and talked about future shows with some promoters. At the end of the first set we came off knowing that we’d played a really good first set and totally happy.

It went wrong at that point as some people thought the sound was fine others said it was too loud, others said they couldnt hear the girls , others could abut could not hear the guitars in balance. It all depended where they were sitting in the room. We tried our best to address all this and by the end we’d turned in a really good performance with improved sound.

However, the promoter said that some people had complained about the vocal harmonies being out of tune. Now Sarah’s monitor 95% failed from early on in the gig, but I could hear the vocals throughout and there were only a couple of times that they went fractionally off, so I’ve no idea what he was talking about?. He also started the you need to bring more people rant. Well my answer to that is as ever we’ll bring the quality and as many people as we can, you promote!!!!!!!,

Its only a band thats was rated by music writers as being the top 15 best live bands in the UK in 2011, Dark Angel as being the 4th best UK release in 2011, that has played Glastonbury and has two great looking and fabulous sounding female vocalists. Can someone sell that???

We need more people like Alan. Here he is running a club with little support and often making a loss. How brave and dedicated is that. We (Bands) need more people to be like him and do this to keep live music alive. The pressure on these people is vast as they gamble with their own money. Its tough in a recession with a shrinking market for live music, so I have a lot of empathy here.

What I do know is that this is a very hard room (the hardest we’ve played for years) for sound.

Well it was great to see our friends

Gary