Alan Shearer’s 40th birthday – Sunderland Echo, 18th August 2010

Recently, ROCKAOKE had the great honour of performing at Alan Shearer’s 40th birthday bash. Superstar guests included Alan Hansen, Iain Dowie and Ant & Dec, and our own guitar hero Dan Richardson got a mention in the paper!

Dan was no doubt thrilled to perform alongside the England footballing legend at this exclusive gig, but there was only one problem – he’s a Sunderland AFC fan! Dan spoke to the Sunderland Echo about his reservations when it came to stepping into Newcastle territory, saying that it was “hard to swallow at first”. Thankfully, he was soon put at ease when he saw that Steve Bruce had been invited too.

For this special occasion, we were joined onstage by BBC Radio 1 producer Matt Fincham, who filled in on keyboards. Matt had worked with us before when we were on tour with Chris Molyes Live in 2009.

Alan had no idea that our guitarist was a lifelong Sunderland fan, but he nevertheless joined us onstage to belt out a rendition of Sex On Fire by Kings Of Leon. We gave him a big intro and he absolutely smashed it!

You can see more pics from this incredible gig by visiting our celeb/high-profile events page. You can also see the full article from the Sunderland Echo here.