It was touch and go whether we would all make it through the mud following days of torrential rain but we made it!

Luckily the weather held fair for our set playing some great summer favourites for wellied up County Show visitors.

We are just about to start playing out and about in the run up to our summer break starting with Northumberland County Show on 25th May. Its a lovely day out so come along.

We had a very successful 2023 playing in some fantastic venues around the region including:

Northumberland County Show,

Beamish in the Sumner and Beamish at Xmas (Not much difference in the weather)!

Tanfield Railway

Music by the Riverside (Tyne)

Grainger Market at Xmas.

Newcastle Central Station

Charity concert with Bedlington Salvation Army Choir for ‘Daft as a Brush’

Hexham Xmas Lights turn on.

Thanks to everyone who came to see us and supported us with donations which help to keep us afloat.

We have just started a new team and are currently rehearsing in the Methodist Church Hall Prudhoe as our usual rehearsal space is no longer available. Watch the calendar for rehearsal details. New members always welcome.

We were privileged to be part of this fantastic evening of music making at Ponteland Community High School as guest of Phil Rosier Head of Music and conducting Ponteland High School Wind Band.

The evening drew to a close with a joint rendition of How to Train Your Dragon with the massed players of Whittonstall, Prudhoe and Ponteland Community Bands joining the Hosts.

Our MD managed to watch for once whilst Phil Rosier conducted.

‘What an amazing night of fine music! Whittonstall, Prudhoe and Ponteland Community Bands and the fab Ponteland High School Wind Bands all with brilliant performances showcasing the best of Northumberland Music.

Then the biggest band you will ever see with a joint rendition of’How to train your dragon’ under the fine conducting of Phil Rosier. It was a privilege to sit back and listen’.

What a lovely evening we had playing with our friends Prudhoe Community Choir.

The evening got off to a rousing start with a joint rendition of Mr Blue Sky, one of our favourite tunes.

One of the highlights of the evening must be hearing our very talented Trombonist Ben Haslam playing the 2nd and 3rd movements of Concerto for Trombone and band by Rimsky-korsakov. Was an amazing performance played all from memory. It was tricky keeping up with him!

Ben is also the principal trombonist with the national Youth Orchestra and the Hallé Youth Orchestra and is destined to go far in his musical career. It was a privilege for the band to accompany him. Good luck Ben.

We ended the evening with a Grand Finale of ‘Selections from Mary Poppins’

Thanks to everyone who supported the concert, we are always keen to attract new players so come and joint us for more ‘musical mayhem’.

Phew what a scorcher! We were lucky with the weather this year with one of the hottest, driest summers on record. An unintended beneficial consequence of global warming?

Our MD Mr Hignett went even redder than usual with the merest glimpse of the sun.

We had a busy start to our summer fundraising campaign with some lovely gigs at Beamish, the Northumberland County Show and Bywell Hall to celebrate the Queens Jubilee.

We had the honour of opening the very first ‘Music by the Riverside’ event playing down by the River Tyne at Prudhoe Riverside Park.

Sadly Mr Blue Skies himself, Mr Mooney couldn’t be present as hoped but at least he ordered up a lovely sunny day.

Organised by Prudhoe Community Partnership this day of music was a great success and will hopefully become an annual event.

Many thanks to Moira Woolridge for taking some fantastic photos of the band.

We are due to restart rehearsals in September so it’s a good time to welcome any new members. If anyone is out there who fancies playing in a lovely friendly band, dust off that instrument and come along.

Dates and venues or all on the website calendar.

We are looking forward to playing with our friends Ponteland Community Wind band and Whittonstall Community Band on Saturday.

We are hoping to raise funds to help the people of Ukraine as well as supporting our local community bands.

Sumup are arranging a national Ukraine appeal with the Red Cross.

Any donation we make from the concert will be matched by Sumup so please give generously and we hope you enjoy the concert.

It is payment on the door first come first served!

Post script

We had a great night with a sell out concert and some very generous donations towards the Red Cross Ukraine Disaster Appeal. In the end we raised £548.37 which was doubled by Sum Up.

Thanks to everyone for coming and making it such a huge success particularly our friends from the Whittonstall and Ponteland Community bands. The joint rendition of the Ukrainian National Anthem to end the evening was very moving.

We had to curtail some of our usual indoor gigs due to the ongoing Covid pandemic this year and were unlucky with the wintry weather so sadly we only managed to get out and about on two occasions.

We did however manage to have a pre Xmas tour rehearsal when said our fair-wells to Jack Ruddick who has decided to hang up his drumsticks after over 20 years with the band. Jack has been a stalwart of the band being a fantastic musician and an inspiration to the many young percussionists that he has taught over the years. We are lucky that one of his former proteges John Bradford has taken over the kit.

He we see our illustrious MD Dave Hignett, and Chairman and founder of the band Steve Quilliam presenting Jack with a token of our appreciation for all he has done over the years.

Luckily we guessed correctly that Jack likes a drop of Irelands finest. Best wishes Jack.

When we did get out It was nice to be able to play on our home turf outside the Co-op in Prudhoe who are always very generous in supporting us.

We always love playing at Newcastle Central Station as it is at least dry if not warm. many thanks to all those passengers who showed their appreciation and donated in our red buckets and newly acquired contactless ‘bucket’

Merry Christmas and very best wishes for 2022 from PCB. Fingers crossed for a better year.

Geralds trip to the North Pole

Helen Walker our very talented French Horn player has produced a lovely video featuring some music from PCB and featuring other members of the band.

Click here to watch the video on YouTube

If there are any aspiring percussionists out there, please come along on Saturday mornings from 9.45 at Highfield Middle School, Prudhoe, to join the percussion ensemble under the guidance of Mark Edwards.

You will have the opportunity to learn to pay tuned percussion such as xylophone and glockenspiel, timpani, cymbals, hand percussion as well as drums!

It is completely free thanks to the generous support of the wonderful Mark Jon Bolderson Percussion Foundation who sponsor the percussion section of the band .You will gain also the invaluable experience of playing with a large music ensemble! 

All you have to do is turn up! 

We had a lovely sunny day for our first gig in nearly two years playing for the Sele First School PTA Carnival who made us very welcome. The was even a special place in the skipping ring for our MD Mr Dave Hignett.

They have some very big cats with blue feet in Hexham!

The band sounded great playing all our old favourites including Sesame Street.

Sharp eyed viewers will have noticed that we have a new drummer , John Bradford, who replaces Jack Ruddick.Jack has recently retired after many stalwart years, playing since the band started. We wish him many happy years of retirement .