Hugh Cornwell Band

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Tickets available on the door from 7.00pm

Doors 7.00pm

Tom Mitchell 7.45pm

Hugh Cornwell Band 8.45pm

Times approx.

This is a standing gig.

It's worth getting in early to give Tom Mitchell a listen.

Remember you can also purchase CD's at the gig or online if you click on to the band or artists own web site

Back with the band .......

Tom Mitchell

Over the years North Shields has proved itself to be a hotbed of new talent and emerging singer/songwriters, this year proves the rule with the emergence of Tom Mitchell.

As the son of Lindisfarne frontman and one-time Jack The Lad Billy Mitchell, Tom has been immersed in the rock/folk world and ale drinking from an early age and cites Randy Newman, Jackson Browne, Loudon Wainright III and, not unexpectedly, Alan Hull as major influences to his songwriting and playing style.

Another influence is idiosyncratic Scots singer/songwriter Michael Marra who Tom has supported.  Tom has also performed with his dad’s band for a sell-out concert at the Sage Gateshead, so he’s keeping the momentum going recording a 5-track CD, which has now been released.

Expect a mix of covers and original songs from Tom, but if you want to contact Tom more info e-mail; tom@music46.freeserve.co.uk

 + Tom Mitchell

The gig opened with an excellent set from Tom Mitchell who can certainly sing and handles a guitar really well. Tom did a good selection of contemporary songs and with the exception of the very loud lady talking at the back, he easily managed to hold the crowd - not a simple job when the audience are there to see someone else.

Es ever, Hugh Cornwell brought us another cracker of a show. He mixed it up and was straight into Stranglers stuff with 'Hero's' the second number in. The new songs were very well received by the excitable fans who always love his extensive between the songs chatter. As far as Hugh is concerned, he is up there to play music and that's what he does. With former Captain Beefheart drummer settled in and the delightful Catherine on bass, this is one power trio who deliver the goods.

A very brief Hugh Cornwell background ....

Hugh Cornwell, the original guitarist, singer and main songwriter in the Stranglers, enjoyed massive success with ten hit albums and twenty-one top forty singles in the 17-year period that he was in the band. He has reveled in his musical freedom ever since he stepped off the stage after a Stranglers’ sold out gig at Alexandra Palace in the summer of 1990 and announced that it was the last time he would be fronting the group.

Hugh felt it was “a bit like having a noose” around his creative neck and that it was time to do something different. He said: “To leave a band you’ve been with for seventeen years is an emotional decision and you feel it internally. The hard thing was not being able to talk to anyone about it. But I wanted to do it and that was that. With the Stranglers no chances were being taken any more. Although we continued to experiment with our music, the band had become an institution which meant that all the danger and risk had gone".

Risk is clearly something Cornwell relishes: “I love venturing into the unknown. It is the only way to get emotional feedback and it drives the creative focus. If you carry on along the same safe and familiar route, you’ll never experience anything at a new level, and you begin to lose the ability to judge what’s good around you."

Hugh has released five other studio albums, ‘Nosferatu’ (1979) ‘Wolf’ (1988) 'Wired' (1993), 'Guilty' (1997) and 'Hi-fi' (2001) which included the song 'Leave Me Alone', featured in its entirety in the new Neil Morrissey (Men Behaving Badly) film ‘Trigger Men’. In response to public demand he has also released ‘Mayday’, a full live band set; and ‘In the Dock’, a solo acoustic album, featuring many Stranglers’ classics. The catalogue is completed by the release of ‘Footprints in the Desert’, a compilation of rare and unreleased tracks from the last ten years.

The Stranglers etched themselves into the nation's musical psyche with many hit singles, including 'Peaches', 'No More Heroes', 'Golden Brown', 'Always The Sun', 'Grip', 'Nice N’ Sleazy', 'Duchess', 'Walk On By', 'Strange Little Girl' and 'Skin Deep', all of which were written against a background of spectacular success, dismal failure, drug dependency, infighting, misfortune and financial ruin.

October 2001 saw the release of the Tori Amos album 'Strange Little Girls', named after the Stranglers’ song  'Strange Little Girl', which was released as the first single on 1^st September in the USA. Cerys Mathews of Catatonia released a previously unheard Hugh Cornwell/Roger Cook composition, entitled ‘Chardonnay’, as the lead track of her first solo album, released in May of 2003.

In March 2004 Hugh completed his new album ‘Beyond Elysian Fields’ in New Orleans and NYC with Danny Kadar (My Morning Jacket) and Tony Visconti, who produced the last two David Bowie albums and co-produced tracks on the new ‘Manic Street Preachers’ album. Tony mixed the Stranglers’ two biggest worldwide hits, ‘Golden Brown’ and ‘Strange Little Girl’. Hugh has also contributed the lead vocal to the opening track ‘Underground’ on the latest ‘Mousse T’ album ‘All Nite Madness’ and also performed to a capacity house on the Left Field stage at Glastonbury 2004.

‘Beyond Elysian Fields’ was released on October 4^th 2004 on the legendary Track Record label, alongside his eagerly awaited autobiography ‘A Multitude Of Sins’, published by Harper Collins. He has completed the first leg of a very successful tour and book signing sessions across the UK have been incredibly well received, culminating in a Reading and Acoustic performance at Europe’s finest Literary Festival ‘Crossing Border’ in The Netherlands. He was also the only none Czech artist to be formally invited to perform at the Prague street Festival to celebrate 15 years of the Student uprising and to open Speakers Corner in the Czech Republic!  Hugh is one of this country’s finest song-writing talents and accomplished live performers.