Stadium Arcadium.

Thanks to Jen Ogle for this pic.

5th October, 2018

A lovely night was had by all at a special night The Blue Yellows were asked to play in honour of our lovely mate and birthday boy Mike, of We Are Nomad, who also played their beautiful sounds before it was our go.

We were very under rehearsed and hadn't gigged since August, adding to the pre-stage nerves, in addition bassist Simon had the lurgy, and drummer Dave was missing some equipment and Em had back ache (especially not good when lugging very heavy PA equipment around is part of the job).

In spite of all this, and in my case after a little skip around in the rain to ease the nerves, I think it's fair to say we played with some gusto, and folk seemed to enjoy it.

Most of all, it was a night shared with plenty of lovely friends, plus.. two

 gigs in a row now, further bookings have come out of it.

These lovelies: L-R Drummer Dave, Bassist Simon, Keyboardist/Accordionist/Backing vocalist Em.

Didn't forget to clip my nails after last week.

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Last night was lovely #funtimes performing not only our 1st stadium gig 😉 but for a special night honouring @mike.aitchison.3 of #WeAreNomad who also played their beautiful sounds. Fankuu to @jaqi_k (I think) for pic 1. #giglife #musicians #guitarist #keyboards #bass #drums #band #rock #folkrock #livemusic #newmusic #crewealex #CarlsbergLounge #concert #livegigs #liveband #music

A post shared by Jonathan Tarplee (@jonniegitahhr) on Oct 6, 2018 at 3:54am PDT

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Sound check now with the #BlueYellows, playing with our lovely mates #WeAreNomad and birthday boy @mike.aitchison.3 ! First #stadiumgig! 😉 #Gigs #CreweAlex #CarlsbergSwete #livemusic #newmusic #guitarist #songs #concert #rock #indie #bands #bandsofinstagram #music #tunes #liveband #livebands #musicians #soundengineering #PA #giggin #soundengineer #sound #livesound

A post shared by Jonathan Tarplee (@jonniegitahhr) on Oct 5, 2018 at 10:53am PDT

Easy Like Sunday Morning.

Sunday, April 5th.

On Easter Sunday, I appeared on Paul Boniface's 'Easy Like Sunday Morning' show on RedShift Radio. 
Paul was great company and we chatted about all things music, including some of my musical heroes and influences as well as some of my musician friends doing the rounds at Easter . weekend gigs. We talked about my tour dates as well of course, and I played acoustic versions of Galleries, Big Low Copper Moon, There She Moves and Beachcombing live in the studio. 

Listen again here;

05/04/15 Easy Like Sunday Morning on RedShift Radio by Sunday Brunch - Redshift Radio on Mixcloud

Lovely acoustics for my early-morning
warm-up in the radio-station rest-room/kitchen.

Christmas at The OBJ

Well, some people think Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Gremlins, however ours struck Em's Keyboard or more specifically her little magic midi sound box thing that sits atop her equipment and give her keys a sound. After some fiddling about with it she then switched to the accordion. Now Emma normally plays 'Just Like Nero', 'Galleries' and the Dolly Parton cover 'Jolene' on this instrument but she did magnificently busking  through the whole of the second set. 

The lovely people from The Situation were our hosts and the near Legendary venue (with stron Jazz associations), The Old Brown Jug. We were booked to do two sets with our old friend Tim Lee, as the filling in the musical sandwich. Tim as I've said many times before is a real talent and played a batch of new songs as well as greatest hits, you can here some of his new ones HERE.

The Poster - Simon was billed as "the most laid-back bassist in the history of rock and roll"!

Emma was on the accordion for the whole 2nd set.

Grumpy elf adjusts his stomp boxes before the gig.

Everyone's a Blue Yellow! The Nag's Head, Crewe. October 26th.

Photo by Martin Rivers

The tiny confines of a great little music pub, The Nag's Head in Crewe mean you have to be careful how you move about on stage, but it was well worth it for a close-up and personal night where some in the audience became a Blue Yellow for several songs after we handed out a load of percussive shakers and the like. Great atmosphere, thanks to everyone who created that for us! 
Tim Lee did a superb job in support, you really should do yourself a favour and check this superb songsmith out.

Tim's set; 
Love is Cruel
Alisha
Diagram of a Heart
One Missed Call
Tracks of my Tears (Smokey Robinson cover)
Prettiest Green Eyes
Ride on the Breeze
This is a Lie (The Cure cover)
Whats in a Word?
I'm Just Gonna be me
She's a Drug
Sophie Draw.

BlueYellows set;
Cry Cry Kill
Love Limpet
The Owl & the Willow
Minute in the Sun
Beachcombing
Big Low Copper Moon
Jolene (Dolly Parton cover)
Where the Sky meets the Sea
Killing Me
Feels like Sunshine
Farmer John (Don Harris & Dewey Terry cover - inspired by Neil Young & Crazy Horse's version).
No Tobacco, No Jesus
These Boots are made for Walkin' (Lee Hazelwood cover).

Injury of the evening; A split lip when dancing in front of the stage resulted in my mic punching straight into my face.

Quote of the evening 1 (just for fun, I'm sure Russ Abbott is a lovely guy); Someone - "Oh what an atmosphere!", me - "perhaps we should cover that?" Simon - "Russ Abbott?!?!", me - "To be fair he's the only entertainer of his generation who hasn't turned out to be a paedo", Simon "yet".

Quote of the evening 2. Me (talking to girl wanted to know when we are playing in future) "Would you like to go on our email mailing-list?" - "I haven't got an email address" - "are you on facebook?" - "no" - "have you got access to the internet?" - "no" - "We'll send a pigeon".

Back to LIVE.

So, a couple of shows in between some spaced-out (time-wise, not drug-induced!) recording sessions. The first one being a very special, private nee secret birthday party gig for Bob, lead guitarist for the accomplished Look Twice Band who is also indeed the father of Emma, our keyboardist, accordionist and backing vocalist in The BYs and what a great night it was - quite nerve racking too to play in front of so many experienced muso's, Look Twice themselves for instance having supported Elton John among many other notables. Now we're getting ready for an acoustic show in Crewe and we've realised, having concentrated on organising recording stuff for so long we haven't played many of the songs going into hour hour and 40 mins or so since mid December. Never mind, it will certainly be raw and the great beer at this venue should see us through! (Check the gig list on the right for details).

Look Twice sound check before us in the background while Bob's family and friends gather.

Getting some BYs T-Shirts sorted for sale at coming shows.

One of the designs