Welcome to Friars Aylesbury!

"Memories are everything apparently, and I have only great ones of the fabulous Friars."   David Bowie, February 28th 2014

BARRIE MASTERS 1956 - 2019

It is with great sadness that we learnt that Friars legend Barrie Masters, of Eddie & The Hot Rods, has left us. 

Barrie was very ill when he played, in May of this year, at the Friars Aylesbury 50th Anniversary gig with Stiff Little Fingers. 

Anyone else would have cancelled, but Barrie was determined to do it as he regarded Friars as his favourite gig in the country. He had to pull back on one song and let Dipster take lead vocals but soldiered on through their anthemic “Do Anything You Wanna Do’ to complete a storming set. 

At the end of the set David Stopps, on stage, presented Barrie with the Friars Heroes Award and the Friars audience immediately went into a football style chant of “Barrie, Barrie, Barrie, Barrie” which brought Barrie to tears. He told David afterwards he had never had a reaction like it. 

Later Sue Stopps caught him in the backstage corridor of the Waterside emotionally looking at the Friars photo exhibition (which will be there until the end of November). He was looking at each photo with nostalgia and wonderment and said to Sue “I’ve had the best life”. 

Barrie Masters lived for rock music and playing on stage to a live audience. He was a true Friars Aylesbury legend.

Thank you so much to Richard Carr, of Bucks TV, for putting this video together at such short notice.

FRIARS AYLESBURY PRESENTS

STEVE HILLAGE + GONG  

 FRIDAY 15 NOVEMBER 2019

AYLESBURY WATERSIDE THEATRE 

TICKETS ON SALE  NOW from ATGTickets, Ticketmaster and See Tickets.

Steve Hillage is recognised as one of the 20^th Century’s most influential guitarists and producers and has a long and distinguished history with Friars Aylesbury. 

He first played Friars in December 1973 at the Borough Assembly Hall with his band GONG whose latest incarnation will be supporting Steve on 15 November. In October 1975 he released his first solo album ‘Fish Rising’ and in 1976 his follow up album ‘L’ which resulted in his first Friars solo headliner in October 1976.  Two more Friars gigs followed in October 1977 (This was one of the fastest selling Friars gigs of all time which resulted in him being presented with the prestigious FA Cup) on his Motivation Radio tour and in 1978 in conjunction with his ‘Green’ album which was produced by Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason. 

Since then he has been associated with a myriad of artists and bands including Kevin Ayres, Mike Oldfield, Hawkwind, Sting, Ozric Tentacles and even Sham’69. As a producer he has produced The Charlatans, Simple Minds, Genesis’s Tony Banks and Robyn Hitchcock among many others. 

Like Bowie, Steve Hillage has always been re-inventing himself so it was no surprise that in the late eighties he became involved with techno/ambient music and along with his wife Miquette Giraudy (who played with Steve on all his solo Friars gigs) formed System 7 which had collaborations with The Orb’s Alex Paterson, Laurent Garnier, Youth and Paul Oakenfold. 

For this monumental return to Friars Aylesbury Steve will be playing tracks from his 1970’s albums Green, L, Fish Rising and Motivation Radio. Reviews of shows earlier in 2019 have been astonishing. Expect to be moved. 

Tickets are available from ATG Tickets, Ticketmaster and See Tickets.

Wow, that SLF/Eddie gig was something - galleries from that gig and other Friars gigs this year by clicking the relevant poster

STEVE HACKETT FRIARS AYLESBURY 2 NOV 2019

**SOLD OUT**

For the first time ever, Steve will perform the seminal Genesis album ‘Selling England By The Pound’ in its entirety. Released in 1973, the album went to No.3 in the UK charts and has been described as ‘the definitive Genesis album’. It includes such favourites as ‘Dancing With The Moonlight’, ‘Firth Of Fifth’, ‘Cinema Show’ and, of course, ‘I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)’. Other favourite classic Genesis tracks will also feature in the show.

2019 also marks the 40th anniversary of one of Steve’s most popular solo albums Spectral Mornings and Steve will rightly celebrate this milestone by performing some of the masterpieces from this album.
Fans will also be treated to highlights from Steve’s new album, to be released in 2019.

HEROES....JUST FOR ONE DAY

The statue was unveiled on Sunday March 25th to a large crowd, a large audience watching live online and covered by local and national media. This was followed by an amazing gig featuring local heroes Marillion, Howard Jones, John Otway and the Dung Beatles.

To see the statue live, there is a dedicated webfeed here

Full gallery here

Neale Wareham's gallery here

Full gallery from Erasure gig here

The Thin White Book now available to purchase

At last it's here!

The Thin White Book - A History of David Bowie and Friars Aylesbury is now available here from the Friars Aylesbury online shop - link above in menu or click this link. goo.gl/D6LbGf