COVID-19 SAFETY INFORMATION

ATG who manage the Waterside Theatre are anxious to make the Waterside as safe as possible for you. It will therefore be a requirement that all ticketholders will need to show proof that they are fully vaccinated on arrival or that they have had a negative lateral flow test within 48 hours of arrival. Lateral flow tests will also be available at the door on the night.

You can see the exact arangements HERE.

PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING will play

FRIARS AYLESBURY at the WATERSIDE THEATRE on

SATURDAY 30 OCTOBER 2021

special guest Eera

Tickets from ATG Tickets Online and by phone 0333 096 690), MusicGlue, Ticketmaster and See Tickets.

There will be a Special Presale this Friday 4^th June at 10.00am for Friars Aylesbury newsletter subscribers via ATG only.  

PSB have been “teaching the lessons of the past through the music of the future” for more than a decade. 2013’s debut album Inform-Educate-Entertain used archival samples from the British Film Institute as audio-portals to the Battle Of Britain, the summit of Everest and beyond. Two years later, The Race For Space used similar methods to laud the superpowers’ rivalry and heroism in orbit and on the Moon. In 2017, joined by voices including Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield, Every Valley was a moving exploration of community and memory via the rise and fall of the British coal industry. Pointedly topical in its analyses, it reached number four on the UK charts.

 PSB are London based and consist of J Willgoose Esq on guitar, banjo, other stringed instruments, samplings and electronic musical instruments, Wrigglesworth on drums, piano and electronic instruments and J F Abraham on flugelhorn, bass guitar, drums and assorted other instruments including a vibraslap. The band have toured internationally and in 2015 were announced as nominee in the Vanguard Breakthrough category of the Progressive Music Awards which they won.

The new album Bright Magic is their most ambitious undertaking yet. Prepare to be transported to the political metropolis that is Berlin. Willgoose moved there from April 2019 to January 2020 and immersed himself in Berlin influences including Depeche Mode’s classic eighties triumvirate, U2’s ‘Achtung baby’ and particularly Bowie’s ‘Low’ and ‘Heroes’ albums……and there’s the Aylesbury connection.Public Service Broadcasting have returned. Expect a new ‘abstract expressionist’ inspired stage presentation, with their corduroy suits re-rendered in brilliant white (“It’s a nod to the Thin White Duke,” says Willgoose). They’ll play it live in Berlin, of course, and the other cities of the world including Aylesbury where progress, unity and possibility are embraced.

Norwegian artist Anna Lena Bruland otherwise known as Eera has been added to the Friars PSB gig this Saturday. Check out her latest album on Dada through Ninja Tune ‘Reflection of Youth’.  

Says Anna Lena “When my sister heard the album, she asked me, ‘Have you been really angry these past few years?’ And subconsciously, maybe I was. 'Reflection of Youth' is very much about living through your twenties, which in Norwegian society are the years when you’re supposed to figure everything out and to have all these materialistic things, and I got tired of listening to that. When I play an amazing show, or write a song I'm really proud of, I remember why I'm doing this, and I feel OK about choosing a different path. This is more important to me than anything else." 

The new album is less Lana Del Ray and more PJ Harvey than her first EP. Anna Lena will be on stage at 7.45pm on 30 Oct. PSB will be on stage at 8.45pm to 10.30pm (approx.) 

BIG BIG TRAIN rescheduled to Friday 2 September 2022

 Modern prog heroes Big Big Train were originally scheduled to play Friars Aylesbury on 16 July 2020 which, due to lockdown, was postponed until 18 July 2021. This second date was also not possible due to government regulations on live events. 

Today we are announcing that this long-awaited date will now take place on Friday 2 September 2022.

 Tickets for the new date are on sale now from ATGTickets/Aylesbury, Ticketmaster and See Tickets. If you have tickets for the original date or the first postponed date, please hang on to your tickets….. they will be 100% valid for this new rescheduled date. 

Local prog legends LIFESIGNS will also be appearing with Big Big Train on 2 September 2022 although that is still to be confirmed.

 Big Big Train dropped their stunning new album ‘Common Ground’ on 30 July 2021 which is now available on streaming services, CD & Vinyl. Tracks “The Strangest Times’, ‘All the Love We can Give’, ‘Apollo’ and ‘Common Ground’ just have to be heard. The band released a further new song ‘The Connection Plan’ via streaming services on 24 August 2021 as part of their 'Stay Tuned' series." 

Lifesigns released their excellent third album ‘Altitude’ in March 2021

THE FLAMING LIPS RESCHEDULED FROM 21 JULY 2021 to 30 MAY 2022.

 We were all hoping that The Flaming Lips would be able to play Friars Aylesbury at the Waterside Theatre on 21 July but due to Covid uncertainty, travel and quarantine restrictions and the fact that no band or live event in the UK is able to insure against Covid19, all the Flaming Lips 2021 UK dates have been moved to 2022. 

If you’ve already bought tickets it would help Friars Aylesbury enormously if you would hang on to them. They will be 100% valid for the 30 May 2022 date.

If you cannot attend on 30 May 2022 please contact the ticket agency where you purchased the tickets. (ATG Tickets, Ticketmaster or See Tickets) 

Tickets for the rescheduled date are available now to those who haven’t yet bought tickets.

 As you know the live music industry has been decimated since March 2020 with 99% of all live events being made impossible due to Covid restrictions. Friars Aylesbury is hoping to survive this but we can only do it with your help. This amazing Flaming Lips show will happen, but we’ll all have to wait a while longer. 

The May 30 date will be an important date on the Flaming Lips American Head World tour which will now kick off in the USA this coming Autumn.

We can’t wait for live shows to start again. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

 TICKETS on sale now from ATGtickets.com, Seetickets.com and Ticketmaster.co.uk.  

FRIARS AYLESBURY ARCHIVE PROJECT

 The Friars Aylesbury Archive is a not-for-profit project wherein we are trying to create a complete archive of all Friars related memorabilia including Friars news sheets, posters, tickets, video, recordings, press cuttings etc. We are then intending to completely digitise everything so that there is a permanent record of everything that has happened since Friars first started in June 1969. 

In order to finance the project we will be offering for sale items where we have excess copies. Any funds created will be used to add additional security to the archive, digitise the archive and to create a fund to buy any missing items of which there are quite a few, as you will see below. We were recently thrilled to be able to purchase a Friars U2 poster from June 1981 which we’ve been after for many years.

As explained we are very keen to acquire the items we are missing, for the archive. Some people have already kindly donated items to the archive for which we are very grateful, but we are quite prepared to pay for them if necessary.  

These are the missing handouts and posters as of May 2021: 

HANDOUTS 

POSTERS   (20” X 30”) 

If you have any of the above items and would like to donate them or allow us to purchase them from you we would be enormously grateful. Please contact Sue@fmlmusic.com 

Many thanks

FRIARS 50^th ANNIVERSARY PODCASTS

Friars Aylesbury first opened its doors on Monday 2 June 1969. Exactly 50 years later on 2 June 2019, the 6 Friars Founding Fathers reunited in Aylesbury’s Kings Head to talk about the early days of Friars and the first magical years of Friars Aylesbury. 

Those participating are legendary rock journalists Pete Frame and Kris Needs as well as the Friars Founding Fathers Robin Pike, Adrian Roach, Jerry Slater, Terry Harms, John Fowler and David Stopps. Also participating are John Braley who managed the Borough Assembly Hall and the Civic Centre for many years, Stephen Daglish who managed Earth Records and created the Aylesbury Music Town website and Keith Martin who was Friars member No 1. 

http://www.buckstv.co.uk/friars-50th-anniversary-podcast-part-two/ 

http://www.buckstv.co.uk/friars-50th-anniversary-podcast-part-one/

 The photograph below shows those participating in the podcast: 

Left to right: 

Kris Needs, Adrian Roach, Robin Pike, David Stopps, Terry Harms, Jerry Slater and Pete Frame.

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.

Sign up to the newsletter (link above) for all the latest gig news etc

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