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Black River Blues News:

 

 

Friday October 31st

Welcome to the Band Barry!

Debut for Barry our new Bass Player at The Magnesia Bank! 

Baz was thrown in the deep end for his first gig with Black River Blues at The Magnesia Bank, but managed seamlessly as anyone with his experience would!

 

(After only 2 months and 9 gigs Peter decided to move on to other things)

Sat September 20

Peter hands it over to Peter!

Peter, a founder member and bass player of BRB has, after 2 years with the band, decided to call it a day and leave us. He reluctantly came to this decision after much thought and consideration and told us he now wants to concentrate on playing more acoustic guitar and writing his own music. We would like to gratefully thank him for his  input, experience and commitment to the band and wish him all the best for the future, he will be greatly missed by us all.

We would like to welcome our new bass player who is also called Peter to the band, he comes with a good pedigree after playing with many bands in the past. He has after few rehearsals bounced easily into the band and we look forward to many gigs with him.

The new Peter (on the left) is pictured here receiving his band tie from leaving bass player Peter. This little ceremony took place at the birthday party (age unknown) of our singer Marilyn last Saturday 20th Sept.

 

Sun August 19

 . . . so as we returned from Mango's in  Shap on Sunday morning, we just happened to have a booking at the Allendale Beer Festival in the afternoon (that’s good planning).

Allendale Beer Festival

We played there last year when it rained all day and the venue was really soggy, this year after the morning rain the sun got it’s hat on and shone all afternoon.

As normal the band playing order was running 40 minutes late, and we took to the stage about 3.30pm and played a range of good blues to a large appreciative audience for about an hour.

Armed with our lunch vouchers we dined on jumbo sausages and excellent homemade beef burgers (local butchers) and beverages, including beer, but then again it was a beer festival and all I can say about the beer is, it was vereeeeeeeeey hic nishe hic!

 

             Mango's at Fell House                Louis & Heather

Just to say thank you to Louis, Heather and Staff (and Louis' mum) at Mango's, The Fellhouse Shap Cumberland
We played there Sat 16th Aug'08 and we were given the warmest welcome anyone could have been given. We had an overnight stay and we also had an evening meal and full English breakfast the following morning and I have to tell you that the food was absolutely out of this world and all cooked fresh from ordering.  Accommodation was also great and Fell house itself is a fantastic labyrinth a bit like a Tardis inside with lovely comfy lounge at the back.
All in all a place to miss at your peril, try NOT to miss out on Louis' West Indian Curry and the sizzling hot Prawn Fajita's.
We are really looking forward to our return visit and would like to wish Louis and his staff all the best.
Love from all of us in Black River Blues.

 

Hi All, we’re back from one fantastic weekend at the Limavady Jazz and Blues Festival, Northern Ireland. We played the Friday night in the main marquee at Frank Owens Bar, it was crammed packed with about 1000 plus music loving people plus more outside trying to get in. We were on stage from 10.30pm till 1.30am with a short break, and the dance floor was full all night.

Friday night at Frank Owen's Marquee

On the Saturday afternoon we played outside in the beer garden of a pub called “The Pub” at a family fun day, the sun came out and the families came out, music and beer for the grown ups and pop, face painting and bouncy castle for the kids and we all had a great time. The audiences at both venues were absolutely fabulous and made us more than welcome. Our biggest audiences to date, bring on the rest!!

At both venues the main question asked was when were we going to be back? (Hopefully in the not too distant future)  

Saturday afternoon in 

'The Pub's Beergarden

   

     

 

The band would like to give a great big thanks to Alan Hewitt of A&H Promotions for organising this trip for us and also to the Limavady Festival organisers, Rory, Steve and Grey for all the hard work and effort that must have gone into it, everything was bang on and went like clockwork the sound men were brill  and the accomodation was to die for. And on top of all that we even managed to come back with a few Ulster bank notes in our pockets, what more could anyone want?

We would also like to thank Mike Darling who depped for us on bass guitar as Pete, our regular bass guitarist was unable to attend. Hope Mike got as much out of it as we did. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

Garricks Head:

On Sat Night 19th April we played the Garricks Head pub at North Shields and were visited by the Fantastic Mr Ray Stubbs who on one of his rare nights off had come to see our band and also the band who were playing the Magnesia Bank which is just around the corner 'WANTED' I think they were called.

Just want to say thanks to Ray for talking to us and arranging to come and play with us sometime when dates aren't clashing, it'll be great for us to have one of the North East's longest standing and finest musician playing with us. We look forward to it. 

We played at the Townley Arms in Stanley on Sat 3rd May, I have to say we had one of the best nights we have ever had, a lot of Blues fans over there and a really warm welcome from the Management and Staff. I've never seen men having a 'gang bang' before but there were four of them at it when we were playing, it was so funny.

Durham Co. Council have refused permission for this years 'STANLEY BLUES FESTIVAL' which we find very sad, not only because the guys in the area are a great bunch and love their music but also because we've been trying for ages to get our band on there, well there's no chance of that now. However the Townley are going to try and get a mini blues fest organised in their own bar in August and if it comes off we'll be playing there for that, so here's hoping. if not we always have next years gig to look forward to on March 28th '09. Can't wait.

Keep you posted

We are playing at the Allendale Beer Festival which is on Sunday 17th August. The event runs from 12 noon till 7.30pm, we played there last year and even though it rained all day we had a great time, so we are looking forward to this year's bash & hoping the sun shine's on us all.

We are also playing at the Bellingham Show on Saturday 30th August. The event runs from 9.00am till 5.00pm, this is our 1st visit to the show and looking forward to a great day. Will let you know gig time when we get it.