29th March
Due to personal reasons, powerhouse Pete has called time on his Northern Rokk career and decided to hang up his sticks.
Pete has been with us from day one as a founding member of the band and will be sorely missed by us all, not only for his talent and energy on the drums but also for his youth which brings the average age of the band down quite a bit. Not to mention he owns the band van (only joking Pete!)
Pete’s final gig will be The Cricketers Arms in Keighley on 13th August. He chose this date to be his last gig with us as The Cricketers is one of our favourite venues and he wanted to go out on a high.
As Pete has given us plenty of notice we won’t be rushing to find a replacement drummer just yet but we will keep our eyes peeled for potential replacements.
We would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Pete for his continued commitment during his time with us. We wish him all the best for the future and we really appreciate the amount of notice he has given us. It will certainly make things a little easier.
19th February
Please note that our gig at The Moorlands, scheduled for 15th April, has been cancelled.
This is due to the venue no longer being able to sustain live music as a result of poor turnouts on band nights. Unfortunately this is becoming all too familiar in the current economic climate.
There are plenty more dates to choose from so check out the gig guide and support your local live music venues & help keep music live.
Cheers
10th June
Northern Rokk have confirmed a joint headline gig with our very good friends Byson Boyz at Rios in Bradford Saturday 18th December.
It should be a great gig with it being our last date before Christmas and we are hoping for a great crowd. If you haven't heard of Byson Boyz, check out there facebook page or bysonboyz.com for more details.
3rd June
Beer Festival Appearance Announced
We have have just been confirmed to play The Tarn Beer Festival at The Tarn Pub in Yeadon. The festival takes place over the weekend of 13th-15th August and will feature some great band from all over the region including Suicide Blonde, Motus, Precinct 13 and The Substitutes plus many more.
We will be on stage at 3.00pm on Sunday 15th. Its gonna be a great weekends so come on down and see some fantastic bands.
30th May
Northern Rokk Wake The Dead
Northern Rokk have just been confirmed on the bill for the Bradford Zombie Walk on Saturday 30th October. This is a charity event and is still in the early stages of planning. All I can tell you at the moment is that it looks as though it will be taking part in Centenary Square in Bradford and feature several other great bands as well as a beer tent, hot food and a Guiness world record attempt. It's gonna be a blast.
For more information visit Bradford Zombie Walk Facebook Page
24th May
What A Weekend
aturday night was our return to The Victoria in Saltaire and it was a great night. Despite temperatures in the pub that were hotter than the surface of the Sun we still managed to put in one of our best performances to date. The crowd was a little smaller than our last visit but still a great turn out considering most of the population of Britain were sat outside in beer gardens or at home having barbecues!
Our sound was spot on and special thanks go out to our new friend Keith Gater for that. Keith is the bass player in the excellent band Hooson and has a great ear and tweaked our sound so it was probably the best we have had out of our own set up. If you like Blues Rock then you really must check them out. We’ve put a link to their site on our friends page so make sure you pay them a visit.
The Victoria is a great place to play. Whilst not the most spacious venue we’ve played we are always guaranteed a warm welcome from the landlady Gemma and all the staff. The locals are always friendly and show their appreciation which makes it all the more fun. We are looking forward to getting back there on August 28th for the Bank Holiday weekend. If you want to see us in a great venue with some great real ales on tap the The Vic is the place to do it!
On to Sunday and a totally different experience for us. As you will probably know, we were invited to play at the ‘Rockin’ To The Core event at The Thornhill Arms in Stanningley. This was a major honour for us for two reasons. The first being we were being asked to play on a bill with some amazing and well established bands such as Top Gun, Shameless and Hooson and the second being we were asked for especially by the organiser Mr Steve Lally as he has followed our progress since we started but not had the chance til now to see us live! So it was almost like we were there by Royal Appointment!!
As if the pressure of playing on the bill with some awesome bands wasn’t enough, we had the unenviable task of following the excellent Hooson who have recently returned from a small tour of Italy!
Anyway after a short sound check we started the set and it was fantastic. The sound was great thanks to a great in house PA and a soundman. The audience were nicely warmed up thanks to the earlier bands and the room temperature being hotter than Hell!! We got the crowd singing and dancing along with us. Honestly, once the first song was finished our nerves disappeared and we forgot that we had been worried at all.
When it comes down to it, we weren’t there to compete with the other bands, we were there to raise funds for a great charity in Cancer Research UK through Rock Of The North which is a great organisation that works tirelessly to raise funds through music related events.
All in all the whole weekend was a fantastic success and we made some new friends from various other bands throughout the area. We also did our bit for charity so we can sleep knowing we helped make a difference.
2nd May
Between a Rokk & The Volcano
Well where to start? So much has happened since my last update and not just on the gigging front.
There was the tiny matter of Rob getting stuck in Germany for much longer than the anticipated two days as a result of the Icelandic volcano! This resulted in the unfortunate but unavoidable cancellation of our gig at The Yorkshire Rose in Guiseley. I would like to apologise to anyone who was planning to come to see us and I would like to apologise to anyone who actually didn’t find out that we had cancelled and turned up only to be greeted by a DJ!!!
I was speaking to one such fan the other night at a gig. He said he walked through the door, saw that a DJ was on and walked straight back out again! Anyway, he saw the funny side of it and managed to catch up with us at The New Inn, Baildon.
Speaking of which, we had an absolute stormer of a gig at The New Inn in Baildon. The gig coincided with a Steve Batty’s birthday (one of our biggest fans) so he came down and brought a few friends along that have seen us before so knew what to expect. We also knew what to expect from them! A lot of singing, dancing, cheering and the general reaction that any band would kill for.
As a special treat to the birthday boy who makes the effort to some see us as often as possible we decided to quickly throw together a cover of Rio as we know he is a massive fan of Duran Duran!
We only had about an hour of practice to tie it down but despite that, the song went down an absolute treat. So much so that it was demanded as an encore by the the crowd.
Needless to say it was a pleasure to play it again as it made Steve’s night. We are certainly going to keep it in the set as it’s a great song to get the crowd singing.
Anyway, that’s all for this latest update apart from to say don’t forget about our competition to win two tickets including backstage passes to our massive gig at The Picturedrome in Holmfirth.
If you haven’t already got your tickets you can either get them from the band at any gig or if you have a Paypal account, visit the main web page on www.northernrokk.com and you can buy them there!
Failing that, just drop me an e-mail and we can sort something out.
At only £5 to see Northern Rokk & Fiery Biscuits in a fantastic venue with amazing sound and lights you would be mad to miss it!!
P.S. I forgot to add that as a result of a great gig at The New Inn, Mike & Lisa (the couple that run the place) have offered us a spot at The Tarn Beer Festival in Yeadon in August on the weekend of 13th 14th 15th August. It's basically a three day beer festival with live music on an outdoor stage for the course of the festival. It's a huge honour indeed and will be great exposure for the band. I should hopefully be in a position to give you all more details in about a week when I've confirmed the date and time we are on. Result!
Competition Time
We have two tickets to give away for The Big One, Northern Rokk's gig at The Picturedrome in Holmfirth on Saturday 7th August.
Not good enough for ya?? How about we throw in two backstage passes as well!!!
You can be there when we soundcheck, watch the entire gig and then afterwards you can come backstage and hang out with the band while we unwind after what will be hopefully our best gig to date!
It promises to be a great night and an experience not to be missed!
All you have to do is this:
We challenge all Northern Rokk T-Shirt owners to send us your pics wearing your NR shirts in the most unusual, bizarre or far away places!
This could be anything from surfing in Australia, posing at the top of the Eiffel Tower or just sheep-shearing down on the farm!!!
Obviously, the more far out and bizarre the better and all photos will be posted on Facebook, MySpace and Northernrokk.com
The competition will run until 25th July
No Major terms and conditions other than:
The comp is open to all ages but if the winner is under 18 they must be accompanied by an adult on the night.
No cash alternative
We may have other goodies to add to this already outstanding prize. Watch this space for details and send all your pics to northernrokk@btinternet.com
1st March
BREAKING NEWS
We have just booked our biggest gig to date!!!
Northern Rokk will be playing
The Picturedrome, Holmfirth
Saturday 7th August
Also on the bill are Huddersfield favourites Fiery Biscuits who will be belting out some great classic rock covers
Tickets will be available soon from the band and also through The Picturedrome's website priced at £5.00. This really is a big deal to us and we would love to see as many of you there as possible
21st February
Busy Start & Not Slowing Down
Well so far the start to 2010 has been very busy for us. We've been busier than I think we expected to be, gigging nearly every weekend since the start of the year and there is no sign of us slowing down any time soon.
We are pretty much booked solid until the middle of June then we will be taking a break for band holidays and also Pete will be travelling around Europe until late July.
Having said that, it looks as though we will be back with a bang as it's looking likely that the first gig back will be a big one. 7th August at The Picturedrome in Holmfirth. This isn't quite set in stone just yet but we are keeping everything crossed that is happens!
Tickets for the gig, which will also include local rock favourites Fiery Biscuits, will be £5 and should be on sale shortly.
We would love to see plenty of you there as it would be great to play to a packed venue. I know for some of you Holmfirth isn't particularly local but this is quite possibly a once in a lifetime experience for us as a band and possibly your only chance to see Northern Rokk in a professional venue with sound & lighting engineers helping us get everything just right!
Two great bands, a great venue, a great night. That's got to be worth £5.00 of anyone's hard earned cash.
Thanks in advance for your support and thanks for your continuing support. We really appreciate it and it makes it so much easier with all your help.
11th November 2009
A little sooner than anticipated due to a cancellation, Northern Rokk will be appearing at The Coniston in Idle.
This is quite a big one as The Coniston is renowned for putting on some great music acts so we have some pretty big shoes to fill.
We will be working extra hard to ensure the new songs are 'road-ready' for this gig and hopefully we will rock the joint.
We would love to see as many of you there as possible to show your support as familiar faces in the crowd always help settle the nerves.
No Pressure!!!!!!
26th October 2009
The Northern Rokk Machine just keeps rolling!
We have today booked two more gigs with The Cricketers Arms in Keighley and The Brewery Tap in Idle becoming the latest venues to book in for The Northern Rokk treatment. Can you believe The Brewery Tap gig is for November 2010!! That seems like so far in the future but if we keep booking gigs at this steady pace I'm sure the next 12 months will fly by! We also have a few more irons in the fire and hope to be in a position to confirm a few more dates in the near future!
15th October 2009
Northern Rokk are currently booking gigs for 2010 so if you are interested in booking us for your pub, club party or any private function, please get in touch via e-mail at northernrokk@btinternet.com.
Our e-mail is regularly monitored so you are guaranteed a swift response
