Mike Cunningham is 50!  Hard to believe but there it is.

The band were invited to play at Mikes ‘Earlier’ version of ‘Later with Jools Holland’ style birthday gig yesterday.

With 3 different bands (TVBB , ‘Truck’  and ‘Trailer’) and a selection of fine musicians performing Solos and Duets everyone had a lovely time.

We had a few special guests helping us out during the afternoon , including Phil Rosier on Jazz Euphonium, Hazel on Bass and Ralph Littlejohn who sat in and blew some fantastic solos on Tenor Sax.

Special mention must also be made of our star keyboard player Kevin Wright who played the whole afternoon from memory without the aid of music, whilst also doubling up as an electric guitar on his classic Synth.

Ralph

Here we see our fine ‘Trumpets in the Gallery’ section. This photo was taken shortly before Ben Heathcote, (pony tail) had a  brief vaso-vagal collapse after hitting a particularly solid high D. A quick recovery thankfully saw him up on his feet and back into the groove.

Tish Simon, somewhat overexcited by the party, had some technical issues with her trombone in the same number when her trombone slide was jettisoned onto the floor during some particularly vigorous tromboning. Sadly no photographs exist of these unusual events.

After the gig it was back to Mikes for some lovely food and more ‘Wylam Brewery Gold Tankard’ which comes highly recommended.

A ‘Tyne Valley Big Band’ Versus ‘ Small Children’ football match quickly descended into the usual ‘Hignett Rules’ melay as more and more players were drafted onto the TVBB team to ensure the inevitable victory.