Hathersage Gala 2010

Ah, Carnival season is upon us once again, and this year we were lucky enough to take the show to Hathersage in the Peak District, a very nice village.

There were all the usual fun and games of a village fete and a wonderful Gala Marquee, most important as that's where the beer was ;-) and at the other end was to gloriously large stage.

Symon, our drummer, had already been and set up the lighting rig during the week so we just had to fill it with instruments and microphones... which when you have two bands can take some time.

8pm rolled around and the hogroast got started and the great and the good of the village came in their droves, and they were ready to party!
We kicked off at around 8.30pm and between us, Rio Five and All Fired Up kept them singing and dancing until midnight, not that they wanted us to stop but after 12 hours at it we were tired bunnies, so we just had to pack it all down and load it all back into cars and get home... we finally left at about 2am. At least the gear comes down more quickly than it goes up.

Hopefully we'll get some good pictures from the gig and i'll get them added as soon as.

Thank-you Hathersage for a marvellous day and, who knows, we might come back and see you next year.

Another exciting day at Rio 5 towers

So as the nights begin to draw in and england's hopes of getting through the group stages a large parcel arrives at Rio 5 towers... Kev's been spending money again. It's his new oberheim viscount cosmos digital stage piano. Is it any good? find out later

Friday photos

Just a quickie to let you know the photos are now on our facebook page, simply log in and search for "rio 5" if you aren't already a fan (tut tut) I'll get them on the main website as soon as possible

Thanks for your support
Rio Five

Last night saw us take a big step toward the dream, we played the auditorium at The Winding Wheel, not as a support act but as the main event. The gig was to celebrate 20 years of Enable Housing, a local charity.

As you can see from the photos the Winding Wheel Auditorium is a nice large venue, in fact we've now played in each of the 3 rooms the veneu hires out, and this time we didn't need to use the ridiculously small and slow lift, so we rolled out the big guns, the 12k PA rig the drum riser, all the banners and roped in a local photographer to come and do his thing, check out http://www.artisanimage.co.uk/ for examples of his work, it's just a pity we couldn't use all the lights, lasers and smoke machine but there's always next time, just imagine it. We have some photos and videos coming so keep tuned into the website for them.

This really is what Rio Five are all about, the big band playing big songs on a big stage to a big audience and we loved every minute of it.

Thanks for your continued support and we hope to see you soon at another big event!

cars cars cars

2 very different phone calls today, one from our lead singer telling me we're using the uber-big rig on friday so we've all got to take our own gear in our own cars, so no drinking... and one to the car doctors to find out when i get mine back as it should've been back today... turns out it might not even be this week. not a happy bunny but hey ho.. one more day at work before the big gig! really can't wait for it

this year

so lets bring you up to date with our year ahead, we're playing in front of 300 people in the winding wheel, 500 folk at hathersage gala and 300 folk at birchover carnival in the summer and that's gonna be great

twitter and facebook

hello... we've neglected the blog a bit recently, twitter and facebook have taken over but now i have my shiny new phone and plenty of data we can put photos n stuff up here straightaway whilst at the gigs! love it