This was a Sunday night wedding gig for us, which was a first!

The venue was Priston Mill, which was a lovely venue in an idyllic setting.

We arrived at 7pm and the guests were finishing off their deserts. We waited until they were outside playing cricket on the lawn and then as the venue was making room for the evening entertainment set-up.

The main room has a high ceiling and our sound guy Phil, from amp rooms, got a great sound for us.

We'd learned Miracle by the Foo Fighters as a first dance and it went really well. As it was a Sunday there was more dancing than we might have expected from our first set but the audience set-off at an enthusiastic pace.

The second set started after we'd taken a short break and had an excellent bacon sandwich and we finished at 11.15pm, exactly when we were supposed to!

It was a good night for us and the night had a relaxed feel to it, we also had some great feedback from the couple as well:

"Just wanted to say a massive thank you for playing at our wedding! We have had so many comments from our guests saying how fantastic you guys were! Lee and I loved it!"

Ok, we're not playing as part of the official Bristol Zombie Walk after-party, and we're working on next year........but we are playing a halloween gig this year.

On Saturday the 30th November 2010 after the zombie walk has finished and you're wondering what to do we'll be set-up and waiting to rock the hell out of O'Neills bar in the centre of town 

So unite zombies, mummies, witches, werewolves, warlocks, ghouls, spectres and lesser daemons of Khorne... UNITE! We need YOU to gyrate, pulse, and death rattle to our party reanimations! 

Once more a true celebration of the undead armies must manifest in the form of rock music, party style. The Reacharounds will take you on a double guitar journey through the darkest corners of your party record collection, jostling you into submission as they go. 

Once again we be joined by New Zealand's finest, the one and only Chocolate Johnson for a fantastic warm-up DJ set to get your rigamortised limbs working! BRAAAAIIINS!

GET THOSE COSTUMES READY! Fancy dress is highly recommended -- in fact, we'll be having a competition for the best costume! 

And the icing on the cake... it's FREE ENTRY! Approximate timings: Chocolate Johnson from 19:30, The Reacharounds start 20:30!
 

We've played some fantastic venue's this year - from mansion halls, school playgrounds, castle turrets, tents, a Polish club and with Dean and Emily's party a church.  The Elmgrove Centre in Redland, Bristol is an old church which now holds functions and parties, and it would be fair to say it was one of the best looking venues we've played.

We arrived at 3pm, which is earlier than we might normally arrive, but with the party starting at 4.30pm and a laptop going through our PA it made sense to arrive, set-up and then come back when we were due to start. We're a Bristol wedding band primarily and this gig was local enough that getting there was easy.

Emily and Dean had spent a lot of time and effort thinking and making the church look good, and it showed. The straw on the stairs and bushels hanging on the pillars were both nice touches which made what could have been a large and cold space feel homely and inviting.

We set-up and sound checked and, again, made our sound engineer, Phil, work hard getting a balanced clear sound. Churches have a lot of resonance to fill out voices but this can pose a problem with guitars and drums as they prefer less 'lively' rooms. Phil came up trumps and the soundcheck felt really good.

When we came back in the early evening the party was in full swing and a dent had been made in the wine, cider and beer that had been supplied. The atmosphere was lively and just after 8pm we cracked through the first set: '500 miles' got people dancing as did 'take on me' but as the first set generally finds those people naturally predisposed to dancing throwing shapes, it wasn't a surprise to see more nodding heads than dancers. 

After a 40 minute rest and refuel we were back on.  By now people were more comfortable with what we are playing and it helped that the lights were turned down, cue more people dancing than nodding heads.  We played through the second set and after an hour finished with 'Rasputin' - which also some cracking Russian style dancing going on.

Our gig for Heidi and Wayne had presented some challenges because of a noise limiter and, to avoid a repeat, we'd spoken to the venue before the gig to ascertain whether Dean and Emily's party would present the same issues. Luckily it didn't!

As a bristol wedding band we've played venues in a and around Bristol and we would say that when you look at a venue, if you want band, check that they're ok with it. 

We had a great night and wish Dean and Emily all the best in the future.

Maybe we were due a tough gig. We've played dozens of weddings and parties in Bristol and the South West over the last 3 years and, to be fair, all of them have gone really well. It was a credit to how far we've come as a band that after everything the evening threw at us we put on a good show. It's also worth saying that the wedding couple were lovely and the crowd were up for a good party - so it all looked good for a cracking night and it wasn't their fault there were problems.

The venue was Cameley lodge in Temple Cloud near Bristol and Heidi and Wayne had been told when they booked the venue that a 5 piece band would be fine. Which turned out to be not exactly true.

The venue itself was really nice: stunning views over fields and it's a 3 star restaurant so the food had been really good. We were relaxed when we got there and happy to soak up the peace and quiet overlooking a small lake while the speeches, which had overran, were finished.

It's a given with most weddings that the timings slip a bit during the day - it doesn't mean we're late but we normally have a bit of waiting around to do when we get there. When the main room was cleared it was an indication of the managements attitude that they asked us to move our gear from in front of a fire exit and wouldn't acknowledge that we'd questioned this and been told to set-up there by his staff.

The biggest frustration for us during the night was that we see ourselves as being there to provide entertainment for the couple, in this case Heidi and Wayne, on a very special day. Our job is to get people dancing and, basically, what the bride and groom want us to do during the night is what happens.

The venue were maybe a bit jaded with the whole wedding thing but they refused to move tables so people could dance and also had a noise limiter. I'm not going to go through how much pain this actually caused but I can say that repeatedly cutting the power to our equipment when we're playing and then saying that the noise limiter is off is not cool. We ended up wasting a lot of time because the management refused to talk to us about their concerns. As a last attempt to play any kind of gig I used some drumstick rods (which are normally used for acoustic MTV unplugged style gigs) to reduce the drumkit volume - which was enough to trip the limiter by itself and this seemed to work and we were able to get going. People got dancing and the venue's killjoy attitude had been defeated, have it!

The clash between our attitude of blending into the night and the managements apparent comfort with intruding and upsetting everyone was really at odds but we prevailed and played a fantastic, if very quiet, gig.

We were very pleased and honoured to be asked to play Claire and Martyns wedding as we've known them for years and are a lovely couple.

The wedding was being held at Walton Castle in Clevedon which hosted one of the best parties I've never been too: The day Jamiroquai's first album 'Emergency on planet earth' had hit number one I saw them play a fantastic gig at the Lakota, in the taxi on the way back two friends and I decided not to go to the aftershow party as we weren't invited and wouldn't have got in, as it happens we would have and as a result that party now has a soft sheen of folklore about it. I suspect that the wedding eclipsed that party by a degree o two.

Clinkclink events hosted the party and did an amazing job and certainly made our job easier with great communication before the night and a fantastic attention to detail. We set up in one of the turret rooms that the castle has and Phil, the sound man and one of the most important members of the band, had his hands full with a very lively room (which is sound man talk for 'give me a moment, this could be tricky'). We set the PA up and had decks for the DJ's and our soundcheck out the way for about 7pm. An added dimension of England playing football meant that the start time for the first dance slipped from 7.30 to after the football.

Bearing in mind how England played we would have been better to have just got on with it - didn't they know there was a wedding on? We had been asked to play Queens 'Don't stop me now' for the first dance, which was a great choice but when we rehearsed it we scratched our heads as to how to make it more 'wedding dancey'.

The solution we found was to extend the beginning and start the vocals later which gave the couple a bit longer, but not too long, to do the obligatory slow dance. When the track kicked in proper, as if on cue, most of their friends rushed the dance floor and it all went off. The first set flew by and other than some EDRS's (enthusiastic dancing related shenanigans), which put Paul's guitar out of tune and broke a mike stand, it went really well.

Unusually we were playing both the Friday and Saturday was a relaxed BBQ and pool day at the castle and we set up our instruments on the grass to play an acoustic set. There was a great festival vibe with people sat on rugs and chairs enjoying the sunshine and loads of kids running around. We played for about an hour after a small ceremony for Martyn and Claire (who's entrance surrounded by said kids to the star wards theme was fantastic) on the stairs overseen by best man Bruce dressed as 'cardinal richelieu', who had minutes of training and a nice piece of official paper through Ordained.com. All in all it was a fantastic weekend, in a beautiful venue with some lovely people. We'd like to wish Martyn and Claire the best for the future as well.

Wedding Suppliers - thewedding-guide.net

Leo and Carolines wedding was held in Bingham Hall a fantastic venue near Cirencester, that must have the best stage we've played on.

While we are normally a Bristol wedding band we do play further afield. 

The venue looks great and the three chandeliers and red and gold interior really add to the overall impressive feel of the place.

As there wasn't a separate room for the evening function we set up on the stage behind the curtain, unbeknown to the guests, through a combination of stealth, hand signals and combat rolls.

We'd sent the last couple of weeks learning a slow version of 'holding out for a hero' for the first dance and when it was time to start the red velvet curtain dramatically went up to reveal the band and a slowly spinning disco ball.

It sounded great and the couple looked great and danced really well. We then got the party started and invited everyone up to dance.......and these guys were ready.

The first set went by in a flash, as did the second, and after over 2 hours of playing we were still being asked for more but had to let the PA take the strain and blast out some cracking tunes for the last hour. We really enjoyed the night and want to thank Leo and Caroline for choosing to have us there.

We played two gigs in March that were special for different reasons: The first was the Bristol Twestival and we were paid in cake and the night raised over £5,000 for charity. It was great to be part of it and the crowd enjoyed seemed to enjoy being there as much as we did (is silly dancing an indicator of enjoyment?) Phantom Limb played after us (so. yes, alright, technically they headlined :)) and played a spellbinding set, they were a lovely bunch as well. The Tunnels was given for free and I think that Gareth Chilcotts venue is going to have some very special nights there as it's a great venue with a fantastic atmosphere (the 1940's wartime dance is a good example!) Matt Gibson took some great photo's and of us, Wayne excluded, that can be a challenge, and a version of don't leave me this way is now on You tube.

The second gig was at O'Neill's which continues to be a surprise favorite of ours. We've played there a couple if times now and each time it's a riot (although not an ACTUAL riot). It was one of the best gigs we've played and we were buzzing for days after. We're playing again on August 6th and should have some new tunes to try-out.

Having met Julie and Dave last year we were looking forward to playing their wedding. They had chosen Hunstrete House near Bath for the wedding and it looked great on a warm, bright day. It's set in a lovely area surrounded by fields, trees and a fantastic view.

We arrived at 5.30pm to set-up and soon had the large ornate room we were to play in looking really good. The first set lasted about 50 minutes and after a short break we came back on in the now, infamous, wizard outfits. It's harder to play in but well worth it.

Julie had asked if we could learn a song, without letting Dave know, and we played a cracking version of Metro Stations - Shake it, Shake it. It turned out that that it was an in-joke as it was on radio all the time when they were commuting to see one another.

We debuted Staying Alive vs Survivor and were asked to play three encores, finishing with Living on a Prayer. Julie and Dave had a great day (and some fantastic chocolate cake as well) and it was a really fun night for us.