We are playing at Stocksfield Cricket Club in honour of the Queens 90th Birthday today.
Our MD Dave Hignett has already played for the Queen and other members of the royal family at various royal occasions. Rumour has it that the Queen herself may will be attending and bringing her Sword.
Arise Sir Hignett?
The band were invited to play again at this years Hexham Regatta. Luckily the wind wasn’t quite as strong last year where we narrowly escaped being blown into the Tyne.
This historic event has history going back to the clubs founding in 1878 and has a tradition of music being played at the regatta dating back many years.
We had a great new location away from the funfair and a nice cosy tent at this years Northumberland County Show. The weather held off and there was no mud so we had a lovely day.
Many thanks to Marg Baillie who kindly forwarded us these excellent photos of the band.
We recently had a very enjoyable and successful with our friends Whittonstall Community Band and Ponteland Community Wind Band held in the memory of John Myers.
Here we see Whittonstall Band with special guest conductor Mr Hignett flown all the way from Hexham to be with us.
It was a very poignant evening as we were trying to arrange a similar concert last year when John sadly died. A candle burned on stage all night in his memory.
Ponteland band, under the baton of Alastair Lord, closed off the first half with a very entertaining set.
The second half of the concert ended with our now traditional massed concert band with a performance of Elgars ‘Nimrod’ played in Johns memory as it was one of his favourite pieces.
Spring has sprung and to mark this we were invited to play in the newly refurbished Bandstand on Hexham Sele as part of celebrations during the annual Spring Fair.
Much merriment was had by all
We had a lovely weekend at Ridley Hall for some intensive rehearsal mingled with good food, good company and relaxation.
“Watch the Baldo”
The traditional afternoon football match saw the usual swathe of carnage in Mr Hignetts wake.
It was a game of two halves seeing the inevitable victory for Mr Hignetts ‘All Stars” V “Rest of the World” with the first to 20 rule in place.
Here we see the PCB Alumni triple goalie dream team in action with Kate instructing Jo and Erin supervising
Then it was back for an early bath before watching an England 5 Nations victory. 
The inevitable PCB ‘World Knockout Snooker Championship’ kept us all amused into the early hours with close competition and a glorious victory for Dave and John to retain the trophy yet again. (All fair and square on this occasion)
This weekend we managed to dodge the rain and play our last Gig of the 2015 ‘Car Park’ Tour on our home patch, squeezing into a last minute slot at the monthly Prudhoe Market.
Thanks as always to George McCreedy for his ongoing support of the band and to all the generous shoppers who gave donations into our collection buckets over the Xmas period.
We have now broken up for our Xmas break and will resume rehearsals in the New Year. (Watch our web calendar for details of dates)
If anyone is thinking of joining us now is a good time of year as we have next term to rehearse music new and old before heading out and about again in the summer.
We’ve been a tad unlucky with the weather with the cancellation of yet another event last weekend due to a sudden snow storm over Hexham.
Luckily we managed to have a very successful and enjoyable evening playing in a nice warm and dry Eldon Square the weekend before.
The crowds of shoppers were very appreciative and generous in their donations resulting in a near record beating collection towards band funds.
We have managed to try and fit another event in before our Xmas break so hope to play et the Prudhoe Market this weekend between 10am-12pm (weather permitting)
Our luck has not held out today with a gale and heavy rain forecast for this morning so we have unfortunately had to cancel this mornings Gig in Hexham.
Apologies to anyone who might have been coming to see us.
Next week we are playing undercover at Eldon Square in Newcastle so it will be nice and warm and dry!
We enjoyed playing at our first visit to Vallum Farm to entertain visitors to their Christmas Fair.
Keeping warm was tricky with a freezing icy wind blowing down from the Arctic but the fine stalwart players of the band played on regardless.
