The Brook, 466 Portswood Road, Portswood, Southampton SO17 3SD
Box Office Hours - 1.00pm - 7.00pm Mon - Sat (023) 8055 5366
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May 2008

Tickets On Sale When Price is Shown

Punky Popsters

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Buzzcocks are an English punk rock band formed in Manchester in 1975, led by singer/songwriter/guitarist Pete Shelley for nearly their entire existence.

They are commonly regarded as an important influence on the Manchester music scene, the independent record label movement and the punk rock, power pop, pop punk and indie rock genres in general. They are primarily remembered for their singles, a string of would-be hits that combined a strong grasp of pop song craftsmanship with rapid-fire punk energy. These singles were collected on Singles Going Steady, described by critic Ned Raggett as a "punk masterpiece". The widely covered "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)" remains one of their best-known songs.

Rock Ledgend Johnny Winter - a true guitar hero without equal returns to The Brook for a massive sell out show! Get your tickets early!

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Smerins Anti-Social Club

Renowned for their explosive live shows, Smerins Anti-Social Club have long been firing up festival crowds and gig-goers throughout the UK. The 10 piece lineup use the raw ingredients of ska, funk, dub, drum'n'bass and swing to full effect in their epic, brass-heavy instrumentals. Regular guest vocalists - including sassy Aussie songstress Nuala Honan - are bringing new dimensions to the band, but their sound still ripples with the unmistakeable energy, colour and humour that has always defined their unmissable performances.

Kicking off the tour in Brighton [Komedia] courtesy of the comm:UNITY collective, Smerins continue the bank holiday weekend with their own legendary parties in Southampton [The Brook] and London [Cargo], with Bristol [Fiddlers] the following weekend. Theu will be joined for these dates with Bad Science and Nuala and the Alchemy Quartet, plus the usual visual treats courtesy of the Sex Pixels, Squeeze 18 decor and tune selction from a variety of DJs.

Bad Science

Conscious heads raise your hands up!

With the deep bass and spacious soundscapes of dub, the get-up-and-dance of funk, bumping grooves and lyrical gymnastics of hip hop, Bad Science have created their own brand of wickedness. Emerging from a winter spent pulling new songs from the furnace, and with frontman Dizraeli newly crowned as BBC Radio 4 National Poetry Slam Champion, the inimitable dub hop crew are set to make you move and muse in a whole new way.

Nuala & The Alchemy Quartet

Nuala and the Alchemy Quartet are putting the sass in folk. With their debut album on the way in June, and a prestigious slot on Glastonbury Avalon stage, this young ensemble boast a style founded on roots music, drawing on a range of genres from folk to funk, incorporating jazz and blues grooves.

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Since forming in the summer of 2004, Crystal Castles, the Toronto-based duo of Ethan Fawn and Alice Glass have amassed a cult following through their uncompromising and intense delivery, a slew of limited edition singles, and shows packed solely from word of mouth. Their 7” singles have sold out almost instantly, they have toured extensively in the UK, Europe, and North America with artists such as the Klaxons and Metric, and remixed songs for Bloc Party and the Klaxons, among others.

Crystal Castles have attracted much attention from those trying to pigeonhole the band as leaders for such media hyped subgenres as “8-bit” and “nu-rave”, however their nihilist aesthetic and diverse body of work suggests their intentions and potential are worth much more. The following is a selection of frequently asked questions that the band would like to clarify, of which their answers are completely sincere and not contrived.

"Their name may conjure up images of Jim Morrison wandering the arctic tundra in search of The Golden Compass, but judging by ‘Air War’, Crystal Castles’ mission is far more sinister. Having just completed a tour which resulted in “fan riots, crowd surges, and metal barriers destroyed” (it says here) these electro anarchists seem set to cause further havoc in Fluoroville with this brutal burst of bleep-pop. Daytime radio programmers will despair at the cut-up vocals, but the soothing waves of synths at the close will ensure the bouncers at their forthcoming gigs will have their work cut out." - NME

Crystal Castles have more recently appeared on Channel 4 British Drama 'Skins' (Series 2 Episode 3) Performing as themselves playing 'Alice Practice'

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Mick Slacker & Co's tounge in cheek tribute act just gets better and better.

The BOG ROLLING STONES have earned a reputation as one of the most authentic sounding tribute acts around. Satisfaction's always guaranteed when these long haired boys come home to the Brook!

Their tongue in cheek humour, wigs, stripy trousers and boundless energy make them an act not to be missed. The question is.....would you let your daughter go???

Early Beatles, late Beatles, dead Beatles, living Beatles, you get them all with the Silver Beatles.

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"...Cover bands are big business these days, but this quartet are clearly a cut above most with suits, mop-tops and jerking stage manoeuvres all in place as they blast out 'From Me To You', 'Roll Over Beethoven' and 'Please, Please Me' with note-perfect aplomb."

The Daily Telegraph.

There seems to be two different methods employed by tribute bands in copying their heroes. One is to immerse themselves totally in character, become the band. The other is to still do this, but do it with tongue very much in cheek. So how to interpret the greatest pop group of all time? The Silver Beatles go for option B, not taking themselves too seriously and this approach definitely works for them. They indulge in banter among themselves and with the crowd, making the most out of the fact that every Beatle is instantly recognisable. The first half of the gig is the young Beatles, suits and mop tops, covering all the early hits; 'Saw her standing there, Can't buy me love' among others before finishing on 'Twist and Shout'. Then it's a quick break and costume change where they miraculously transform into the older, hippie era Beatles; the period where they wrote some of their finest songs. Just point non-believers to songs like 'In my life' and 'Let it be' which show, more so than the early years, why the Beatles are still held in such esteem. Not that anyone here needed convincing. The 500 plus crowd, arms held aloft, nah-nah-nah-ing during the encore of 'Hey Jude'. Nope, no non-believers were present.

Review by Thomas Christie

One of the classiest acts to emerge from the Britpop era, as songs 'Slight Return' and 'Marblehead Johnson' will attest. Cultured indie pop.

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Article taken from Wikipedia

The Bluetones are an English indie rock band, formed in Hounslow, Greater London, in 1994. The band are comprised of Mark Morriss on vocals, Adam Devlin on guitar, Scott Morriss on bass guitar, and Eds Chesters on drums. A fifth member, Richard Payne, came on board between 1998 and 2001.

The band's biggest hit, "Slight Return", was released in 1995 and re-released the following year. They achieved eight Top 20 UK chart placings in total and retain a loyal fanbase.
The band's commercial success waned after the fall of the Britpop movement, yet they have continued to tour and release new records and are therefore often labelled as "Britpop survivors".

After the release of two singles on Fierce Panda Records, they released Expecting to Fly on the Superior Quality Recordings label. The album (one of only a few debut albums to enter the charts at number one) featured the singles "Bluetonic" and "Slight Return", with the latter being beaten to number one by one-hit-wonders Babylon Zoo's "Spaceman". Following the touring and promotional duties for Expecting to Fly, the band released a standalone single, "Marblehead Johnson", as a bridge gap between albums.

The second album, Return To The Last Chance Saloon, was released in 1998 and possessed a decidedly Mexican flavour. While failing to generate the commercial success of their debut, it did spawn hits in the form of "Solomon Bites The Worm" and "If..." and remains a favourite amongst fans.

Whilst many of their mid-'90s peers had disbanded by 2000, The Bluetones released their third album, Science & Nature, which again reached the Top 10 and featured the hit singles "Keep The Home Fires Burning" and "Autophilia". Due to a change in musical climate and lack of press (most notably from the NME) the album failed to generate the commercial success of the previous efforts.

After releasing a best-of album in 2002, the band followed up with Luxembourg, somewhat stylistically spikier and less jangly than previous efforts and highly influenced by the bands of the day, such as The Strokes. The album received little attention in the music press and failed to produce any hit singles. After signing a three-album deal with the Cooking Vinyl record label in late 2005, a comprehensive boxset of all singles and B-sides, A Rough Outline, was issued in early 2006 by Universal.

A new single, entitled "My Neighbour's House", was released in the United Kingdom on September 18, 2006. The single is taken from their self-titled album, which was released on October 9, 2006. Despite largely positive reviews for the album, it failed to chart in the Top 75 UK Albums Chart after its first week on sale. The album was also released in the United States, the first such occurrence since their debut. On October 1, 2006, it was announced that a planned nine-date tour of North America and

Australia had been scrapped.[1] No reason has yet been given.
On November 1, 2006, the band began a month-long tour of Europe in support of their new release, including two sold-out nights at Glasgow's King Tuts.

The band have built a strong live following over the years, and remain upbeat about their music and their career. In a December 2006 interview with stv music, Mark said of the Cooking Vinyl deal that it felt like "the start of a new era" for the band, which was partly the reason behind self-titling the album.

The South's finest tribute to the timeless sound of Pink Floyd.

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Perfect Alibi play perfect Pink Floyd! With a psychedelic light show. Perfect Alibi aim to give the audience not only authentic reproductions of the music they love, but also a show with sophisticated lighting and pyrotechnics, filling theatres and clubs wherever. With an ongoing desire to better each and every show they have become the definitive tribute to the music of Pink Floyd. There is no dark side... Read Review of Perfect Alibi @ The Brook ::

Wonderful Folk Singer

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RAGGA PUNK METAL! Skindred is quite simply unlike anything you've heard. Elements of Metal, Dancehall, Punk, and Drum & Bass.

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RAGGA PUNK METAL! Skindred is quite simply unlike anything you've heard. Elements of Metal, Dancehall, Punk, and Drum & Bass, all swirling into a concoction of lethal addictiveness. Their debut CD Babylon spawned three singles including the smash hit "Nobody" and proved to be one most important and impressive releases in heavy music in years. In an era of fakes, frauds and imitators, Skindred delivers.

"For Skindred, its all about the Music, Education, Entertainment and 100% vibes. We deliver our live set more like a reggae sound system than a metal band but the punches power and hard heavy weight guitars hit just as nasty. All we try to do is bounce up the building, set the pit off making the place buzz with X-sightment, Dread heads rock metal heads skank and when we finish with the stage, YOU DONE KNOW that SKINDRED RULE the Original Ragga-Metal style." - Benji Webbe

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The return of this great band - come up and see them - make them smile!

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Make me smile (come up and see me), reached number one in 1975 in the UK and many European countries and is regularly voted among the top singles in the history of the charts, which covers six decades of releases.

The Performing Rights Society has confirmed it one of the most played records in British broadcasting.  The song has been covered more than 100 times in seven languages and has been featured in several movies including The Full Monty (whose soundtrack album went triple platinum in the UK, and platinum in the USA and Australia), Velvet Goldmine, Best and Saving Grace. The song has also been used on more than twenty TV and radio advertising campaigns around the world.

'I laughed my head off!'– A Boleyn.  'Thenthational'– C Eubank.  You can't argue with reviews like that.        

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Larry Miller

As the youngest son of a highly artistic and musical family from Guildford, Larry picked up his first guitar at the age of 7. After studying violin at The County School of Music, Surrey for 7 years, he chose to concentrate solely on his guitar. Larry then spent some time with some seasoned pro's where he gained invaluable experience playing regularly all around the South of England, concentrating on Freddie King and Peter Green numbers. Before long he formed his own band, playing his own songs, his way. A plethora of nation-wide live work followed to great acclaim, including a 'barn storming' set at the Reading Festival. Playing alongside the likes of Thunder, Ian Gillan, Climax Blues Band, Peter Green and Walter Trout and meeting up with Eric Clapton, Gary Moore , Rory Gallagher and Alvin Lee along the way, Larry Miller is fast becoming the U.K.`s top new Blues Guitarist. Larry's hard working band features ace drummer Andy `machine gun` Aust and Mel Waters on bass guitar.

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`FANTASTIC, WORLD CLASS GUITARIST` Bluesrockers USA `HIGHLY IMPRESSIVE - A TOTAL VICTORY` Kerrang UK `NATURAL SUCCESSOR TO RORY GALLAGHER AND ALVIN LEE` International Encyclopaedia of Rock `HIS GUITAR PLAYING IS SIMPLY MESMERISING` Bluesmatters UK `THE BEST IN-YER-FACE ROCK BAND AROUND` The Guardian UK `A BLUES ROCK POWER HOUSE` The Guardian UK `THIS IS ENTERTAINMENT WITH A CAPITAL `E`` Blues in Britain UK

Guitarist and singer Barry Barnes is one of Europe's most active enthusiasts working to keep alive the music and memory of Rory Gallagher.

Since 1996 Barry has organized the annual Rory Gallagher tribute gig at Dukinfield Town Hall, near Ashton-Under-Lyne, Lancashire, making this the first, and the longest running Rory Tribute in the world. Currently established as one of the main events on the Rory calendar, and forced to re-locate to Sheffield, it continues to grow and now 'The Rory Gig' attracts audiences in excess of four hundred people from throughout the UK and abroad.

The same impetus to celebrate Rory's genius led Barry to form a tribute band with two like-minded musicians - bassist Dave Burns and drummer Steve Richardson. Both Dave and Steve are lifelong Rory fans, not just some rhythm section that Barry has cobbled together, and it shows! Together as Sinnerboy and driven by belief, enthusiasm and passion, it's the bands stated aim to be amongst the best Rory Gallagher tribute acts in the world. Sinnerboy are ever-presents at all the major Rory festivals throughout the world and were Donal Gallagher's choice of band for the first London festival at Hammersmith (Donal calls them his favourite 'boy' band!)

70s California influenced Welsh rock band. Formed in 2003 and have already supported both Tom Jones and Elton John. Now there’s a story or two that would be worth hearing!

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Robin Trower's career has spanned more than four decades. He is one of the finest guitarists in Rock n Roll history

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Robin Trower's career has spanned more than four decades. He is one of the finest guitarists in Rock n' Roll history. Robin Trower spent the early 60's playing guitar in various London based outfits, the most successful one being The Paramount's. They specialized in mostly covers, but managed to issue several singles between 1963 and 1965 and were a favourite band of the Rolling Stones. It wasn't until 1967 that Trower received his big break when he joined Procol Harum. Trower was a member of Procol Harum until 1972.

After leaving Procol Harum, Trower embarked on his solo career and found the success that has made him a legend today. Armed with his fluid and powerful guitar style, redefined during his stint with Procol Harum. All of his early albums share a tough, explosive style mixed with his trademark "soft psychedelia" that made Robin Trower a power trio that will forever remain in Rock n' Roll history. Throughout his long and winding solo career, guitarist Robin Trower has been called the "White" Hendrix due to his uncanny ability to channel Hendrix' bluesy/psychedelic, Fender Strat-fueled playing style. Trower released his solo debut, Twice Removed From Yesterday, in 1973. The album barely left a dent in the US charts, but that would change soon enough with his next release 1974's "Bridge of Sighs". The album skyrocketed into the US top ten, peaking at number seven selling a million and a half copies and it still sells 15,000 copies a year to date worldwide. Although "Bridge of Sighs" was to be his most popular solo release, Trower's stock continued to rise throughout the mid 70's, as he became an arena headliner on the strength of such hit albums as 1975's For Earth Below, 1976's Robin Trower Live and Long Misty Days, plus 1977's In City Dreams. Further releases followed in the 80's, and a brief union with ex-Cream bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce spawned a pair of releases, 1981's B.L.T. and 1982's Truce, before Trower returned back to his solo career.

The 80's saw Trower expand his audience with several releases that updated his blues-rock style (such as 1987's slick produced Passion). During the early 90's,Trower returned back to Procol Harum for a brief reunion (1991's Prodigal Stranger), before backing ex-Roxy Music singer Bryan Ferry on a few releases (1993's Taxi and 1994's Mamouna, the latter of which Trower earned a co-producer credit for).

The 90's saw Robin consistently touring the USA with his power trio. In 2002, Trower returned to the production role, linking up with Bryan Ferry again, to work and play on Bryan's "Frantic" album. In the following years Trower concentrated on writing and producing film music for releases such as "Good Humour Man". In 2005, Fender are scheduled to release a Robin Trower signature guitar to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stratocaster, along with this there will be a "Bridge of Sighs" custom shop Stratocaster, of which only 100 will be made and will mark the legendary album's 30th anniversary. To celebrate this event, Trower has decided to return to live work in Europe. 2006 will see Robin Trower touring the UK, Germany, France and The Netherlands. His band will feature Dave Bronze (Bass), Pete Thompson (Drums) and Davey Pattison (Vocals).

Moody, Floydian Celtic-tinged Rock

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Mostly Autumn are a seven piece band from York and have been formed for over nine years playing music that has been described as organic emotionally charged rock with Celtic undertones. They are hailed as the band rock fans have been waiting twenty years for. The amazing seven-piece have all the hallmarks of the great bands from the seventies – there are echoes of Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Genesis and all of the greats, but the sound is unmistakably their own.

Like the Autumn season itself, their music has a romantic, organic quality and are a rare naturalness, but it also combines elements of sheer power and intensity. The songs seem to grow into life rather than emerge as the work of a laboured writing process.

They have recently won "best band", "best track", best classic rock gig", "best guitarist", and "best vocalist" in the international "Classic Rock Society" awards, voted for by the public.

After signing a major record deal worth over 1.2 million with "Classic Rock Productions" two years ago they have repeatedly played sold out concerts in Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Norway, New Jersey, Mexico and all over the U.K.

After an amazing 3 years with Classic Rock Productions, both parties decided that Mostly Autumn should be set free and on 4th June 2005 The New Astoria, London saw the launch of Mostly Autumn Records, and a live recording of this gig 'Storms over London Town' was released early this year.  They are currently writing and recording their latest (6th) studio album 'Heart full of Sky' which will be on general release next February 2007.  A limited edition double album is available to pre-order now and will be pressed late November or early December this year.

 " I've been listening to this amazing new band called Mostly Autumn" Rick Wright from Pink Floyd on BBC Radio 2.

Fantastic Santana Tribute

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ALL THE HITS: With a stunning two hours of favourites from Abraxas to Supernatural, the La Vida Santana live sets include selected songs many of the Santana albums. Check their website for samples of their work.

Enjoy stadium rock the way it should be enjoyed - in a 600 capacity venue, six feet from the bar and ten from the stage!

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