Balmy Days

Towards yet another day of extreme, for the UK, heat - I had a really fun night hopping onto a brief part of Barn54's epic Athens to Aberdeen tour of 2026, in Warwick. These two work so hard night after night, country after country to bring the audience into the night as one united, vibrant celebration of life. It's such a joy to witness and a joy to be a part of. After an opening solo set of half an hour or so, I joined the duo on guitar and the odd backing vocal for for most of their set too.

I'll see them again soon.

Sina and Simon of Barn54

 at Ronnie's of Warwick tonight

Conglomeration

 07/08/2026

A conglomeration of bands and artists gathered in Congleton tonight having agreed to give up their fees in aid of rasing funds for Saint Luke's Cheshire Hospice.

A totally unrehearsed highlight for me, probably for all of us performing, was - with all musical hands on deck - jamming out a raucous version of Mustang Sally honoured to much missed local musician Dave Speakman who died recently. 

It was a great way to end a little run of gigs that have mainly been to really 'listening' typical gig-going audiences, which are great to play to of course. 

This audience however had much more a vibe of friends going out, raising money for an important charity to them & catching up with each other, perhaps for the first time for some while. So it was quite a noisy, chatty crowd - and why shouldn't they be? They enjoyed all the acts and sang and danced to us and all the others. So while they have been a loud, chatty crowd they were up for lots of fun, friendly & a good challenge to win over. 

If you were among them, and now reading this - thanks for your kindness in coming out for a good cause, and bringing the good times!

Organiser & host Louise playing her
maracas alongside Em. 

Violet Blue

 Today we played the wonderful annual(ish) Garden Party booked by wonderful friends and hosts Martin and Elaine. So many lovely, talented acts and a lovely, neighbourly crowd in a still (despite stacking heatwaves) beautiful leafy garden.

One of many highlights for us was pursuading Diane of Violet Cry to join us for a song on the vocals - a great moment!

Diane joining us on vocals

Glitter Curtain

This time around at for Dress Down Sunday, we were supported very ably not only by our host Jasmine Allen Estate & nineties-esque rockers The Moondogz but by a rather glitzy, golden glitter curtain left up behind us from a previous event.

Hopefully, even without our recovering ace of bass Simon we did our best without him to bring some classy sounds to the lovely crowd who turned up in the refreshingly cooler weather (at last)!

Great to meet some new people at this show, thanks for coming!

The U-Yellows

 Live at Alsager Music Festival 2026

U-Yellows? Or maybe OooYellows? Anyway, there's still only 3 of us so 3/4s of The Blue Yellows with our Simon still off injured. Get well soon! We're missing our friend, missing his wonderful basslines and missing so many songs where his input is absolutely essential.

Nevertheless we braved it onwards to the fantastic atmosphere at The Alsager Music Festival in the very special vibes of the Sunken Garden.

Thanks to the many who lent us their ears and joined in with some songs, gave us some lovely feedback (of the spoken kind) and bought us a beer. 

We loved it - but we can't wait to be 4 again!