What Happened?!?!
Bloody Hell, how did it get to November. It seems like seconds ago we were jumping around in red noses for Comic Relief at the Rose in Vauxhall. Apparently not, it was 9 months ago! So here’s a quick three quarterly report of the awesomeness that we have been laying down in the interim period. It comes with a tentative promise of blogging more regularly. The aims of increased blogosphere action are three fold. Firstly it will help to show people who care what we do beyond the stages of London town, secondly it will remind us what great jobs we have and thirdly it will stop Danny bleating in my ear about how I never update the blog!
So…in chronological order, here are the brief highlights of the last nine months.
March – Our first and only hen night. 4 lads, 25 drunk ladies = you do the math! Wowzers! Repeat booking please.
April – Snowbombing – 5 days in Austria. 4 performances. 300 jaegerbombs. Youdu the mafth…..hic.
May – Our introduction to the carnage of Propaganda at the O2 Acadamy in Islington. this spurned a number of national dates that could turn into a lively tour next year. May also marked our first festival of the year on a rainy day in a car park in North Yorkshire. The beautiful people of Crickstock go down in Rockoake folklore.
June – The Wednesday and Thursday at Download were absolute mayhem. Anyone who thinks Rockoake is not a big stage ting should cast their beady eyes at the 1,500 people getting down and dirty in this little number .Big Stage Rockaoke at Download. We also played Winterwell for the third time which is another of our favourite festivals of the year but for very different reasons. Then there was the Hard Rock Calling after party at Kensington Roof Gardens which involved Danny drinking far too many mojitos and getting his car towed the next morning as a result. In between this action we managed to clock up a 36 hour road trip, taking in a very early morning varsity ball and then a crazy corporate in Harrogate that saw Jamie Archer ( Xfactor man with Afro ) turn up for his PA and on seeing the boys play swapped his backing tracks for a 3o minute improvised live set. Rockaoke’s Longest Day
July – This whole month was overshadowed by the sensational events of the first weekend. In fact that weekend has to go up there in not only the best weekends of the year but also in the Rockaoke Hall Of Fame top ten weekends of all time. It was a story of two double performances. The days were spent whipping up revellers in the summer sun at Jamie Oliver’s Big Feastival on Clapham Common. This included hitting up the main stage on the Sunday, giving singers the chance to perform in front of 4,000 people and again proving that Rockaoke works on the big stage. Big Feastival By night we sped to the Milton Keynes bowl where we twice rocked the VIP section of the Foo Fighters mega gigs. Sadly this also involved getting to watch the whole show both nights from a Grohl’s spit distance. The month was finished in style with a red wine and meat infested 3 day sejourn to a party in a castle in Umbria. It was nearly finished for good after a late night drinking session with the hotel owner turned a little funky. Never again will we ask a wobbly Kosovan war veteran to prove it!
August – Weddings, weddings, parties, parties, V Festival VIP, weddings and more parties. The top of the rock tree in August was a sensational party thrown by a gazillionaire in the back yard of his uber mansion somewhere in Wiltshire. Putting on your own minifestival for 200 mates for a whole weekend is a pretty cool thing to do and in the words of one of the guests ” I’ve been to many parties over the years and this was the best party I have ever been to, and the best thing about the best party I’ve ever been to was Rockoake”. Not only the party of the summer but quote of the decade.
September – Errrrmmmm. Right. This warrants either a sperate blog or a very quick entry so I don’t end up daydreaming. Here we go. So we played at the Roundhouse and twice at Koko in the space of a week! That’s some heavy music venue boxes ticked! Amazing! Wish we could do that over and over….one day. Just check out these videos – you’ll understand. Rockaoke @ Guilty Pleasures Rockaoke @ Crisis “The Big Thankyou”
October – The Pride of Britain Awards Aftershow party started the month with a celeb fest bang. Unfortunately there were far too many agents hanging around to let any of them get on stage, not that Jon would have known who any of them were. We also started a new residency at The Star of Kings in Kings Cross which we hope will turn into as great a night as the wonderful AAA in Kensington. Seeing that not much else happened in October, now would be a good time to say how the growth of our AAA nights has definitely been one of our favourite things this year. After the unceremonious exit from Punk in January we were a touch dejected and wondered where we could find a venue as good. Two weeks later we started at AAA and it’s been a treat ever since. The owners are lovely, the stage and sound are easily the best we have had at a residency and it creates a genuine gig atmosphere for singers to strut their stuff.
November – We can’t complain so far. A couple of days in Portugal with 700 woman in fancy dress and a weekend in Belfast to play the sublime Empire Music Hall. Those crazy Irish kids love Rockaoke and we never fail to have excellent Craic when we’re there. It’s so good that even our down time is epic. On this occasion a mid afternoon guinness at The Crown turned into rock and roll story time with the legendary Wilko Johnson from Dr. Feelgood.
So here we are, half way through November and about to embark on our busiest Xmas ever. We’re going into battle at over 40 gigs in December alone and if we make it out the other side we’ll let you know what happened.
If you got this far, thanks for reading. More regular updates will be shorter and sweeter. Keep on rocking!
x