FRIARS AYLESBURY TODAY ANNOUNCES THE FIRST 2020 FRIARS DATE AT AYLESBURY WATERSIDE THEATRE

 THURSDAY 16 JULY 2020 

+ LAZULI 

Emerging prog giants BIG BIG TRAIN and LAZULI (from France) will play Friars Aylesbury for the first time on 16 July 2020. 

We are organising a special Friars Aylesbury Newsletter Subscribers’ PRESALE this Wednesday 27 November at 10.00am from ATG Tickets only. (No presale tickets will be available from Ticketmaster or See Tickets)

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We will be issuing you with a special code on Tuesday 26^th November which you will need to buy tickets. Presale tickets will be available on Wednesday from Waterside Box Office, ATGtickets.com or 0844 871 7607. Tickets limited to a max of 6 per person. The Waterside will be in all-seated format. 

Tickets go on general sale on Friday 29 November at 10.00am from Waterside Box Office ATG Tickets  (atgtickets.com), See Tickets (seetickets.com) or Ticketmaster (ticketmaster.co.uk) or ATG by phone 0844 871 7607. 

BIG BIG TRAIN and LAZULI – SPEARHEADING THE NEW WAVE OF PROG 

Prog bands take a long time to come to fruition. Both Big Big Train and Lazuli have been around for a while, slowing building a dedicated following with their exciting and inspirational music. Like Steve Hackett’s staggeringly good performance on 2 November and Camel who played Friars in 2018, both of these bands have an astonishing level of musicianship. It’s brilliant that  these two bands will be playing Friars – bands that have never played Friars before – or have they? 

The one connection with the 50 year history of Friars Aylesbury is Big Big Train’s Dave Gregory who played lead guitar with XTC from 1979 – 1999. Looking back XTC were one of the true pioneer pop-punk bands of that era. Dave played on their legendary Drums and Wires album (79),  Black Sea (80), English Settlement (82), Mummer (82), The Big Express (84), Skylarking (86), Oranges & Lemons (89) and Nonsuch (92). XTC’s singles ‘Making Plans for Nigel’, ‘Senses Working Overtime’, ‘Sgt Rock is Going to Help Me’ and ‘Dear God’ will be played forever.  

Dave guested on Big Big Train’s album ‘The Underfall Yard’ in 2009 and joined the band officially in 2011. The current band line-up is founder Greg Spawton (bass/keyboards), Nick D’Virgilio (drums), Rachel Hall (violin/vocals), David Longdon (vocals/flute/keyboards/guitar), Danny Manners (Keyboards/bass) and Rikard Sjoblom (keyboards/guitars). Until 2009 Bournemouth based BBT were active as a mainly studio project led by Spawton and released 12 studio albums and 3 EPs. They performed their first gigs in 17 years in 2015 at King’s Place London  which was awarded ‘Event of the Year’ by Prog magazine. Since then the band have been playing larger and larger venues. Their 2019 album ‘Grand Tour’ came flying in to the UK Top 40 and was voted ‘Album of The Year’ by Prog Magazine.

Lazuli were formed in 1998 and come from the South of France. Somewhere between rock, prog, world music, poetry and travel the music of Lazuli visits new territories with an unusual instrumentation: Marimba, French Horn, drums, percussion, guitars, vocals and a unique instrument created by Claude Leonetti – The Leode. For Lazuli, songs are canvases on which they mix colours to paint their own world. Lazuli have toured with Aylesbury legend Fish. Fish guitarist and local legend Robin Boult says that they are sensationally good and remain very French even in their playing. Expect a mass marimba solo at the end of the set.

Wow, that Steve Hillage and Gong gig was amazing - galleries from that gig and the other Friars gigs this year by clicking the relevant poster.

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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