Waterloo Street, St. Helens WA10 1PX www.citadel.org.uk Box Office: 01744 735436 Press Release: Tuesday 2nd July 2013 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE This week at The Citadel Arts Centre, St Helens Simon McBride and Hugh Cornwell The Citadel Arts Centre will be welcoming Simon McBride on Thursday 4 July and Hugh Cornwell of the Stranglers fame on Saturday 6 July 2013. Predicted to be the next Irish blues guitar hero in the footsteps of Rory Gallagher and Gary Moore, former Young Guitarist of the Year Simon McBride has undeniable guitar artistry combined with a fine voice and a real knack for creating memorable hooks and great melodies. His latest CD Crossing The Line is a fiery amalgam of guitar skills, songcraft and character-soaked vocals, spinning tales of girls, gambling and corporate avarice. Recorded in Northern Ireland and The USA, mixing of the album was placed in the experienced hands of New York-based Peter Denenberg, the veteran producer and engineer whose CV takes in everyone from Deep Purple to the Spin Doctors and Robert Cray. Rewind to the early-’90s, and you didn’t have to squint to spot future greatness in the unassuming kid from Belfast, who picked up his first guitar at ten and eschewed formal lessons to bend his fingers around the music of Free, Jeff Beck and Hendrix. Aged 15, Simon won Guitarist’s hotly-contested Young Guitarist of the Year competition in a Wembley Conference Centre showdown, and at 16, he turned pro, leaving education behind to wow the world as a hired gun in projects than ranged from metal with Sweet Savage, to R&B and soul with ex-Commitments vocalist Andrew Strong. Tickets for Simon McBride are £12/£10. Doors open at 7.30pm. Hugh Cornwell is one of the UK's finest songwriting talents and accomplished live performers. The original guitarist, singer and main songwriter in the British rock band the Stranglers, he’s enjoyed massive UK and European success with 10 hit albums and 21 Top Forty singles, etching himself into the UK and Europe's musical psyche with classic songs, including Peaches, No More Heroes, Golden Brown, Always the Sun, Grip, Nice N Sleazy, Duchess and Skin Deep. His recent studio album Totem and Taboo received rave reviews in the UK and will be released in the US on 25 June. Recorded at Electrical Audio Studios in Chicago, the album was engineered and mixed by the legendary Steve Albini. Praise for Totem and Taboo: "His gnarliest record in over 30 years ... Hugh and Steve: a marriage madeinblack." (MOJO) “Thanks to a gloriously raw and vibrant sound, courtesy of the ever reliable Steve Albini, Cornwell’s endearingly sardonic observations on freedom, consumerism and Madonna Louise Ciccone crackle with energy. He sounds more engaged and intense than he has in years. It ends with the menacing sprawl of In The Dead Of Night Cornwell’s finest and most unashamedly epic moment since the Punk Era” (Classic Rock) Tickets for Hugh Cornwell are £18/£16. Doors open at 7.30pm. Page 1 of 4 The Citadel Arts Centre, St Helens – 4 New Shows on Sale Now Saturday 12 October Chantel McGregor Chantel McGregor is one of the most exciting rock and blues musicians that the UK has ever produced! Tickets £13/£11. Friday 25 October 2013 Deborah Bonham The sister of legendary Led Zeppelin drummer, John Bonham, Deborah Bonham performs classy blues rock from her new album ‘Spirit’. Tickets £12/£10. Saturday 19th April 2013 Limehouse Lizzy “The Boys are Back in Town” for their renowned action-packed, pyrotechnic-fuelled explosion of a show. Tickets £14. Saturday 6 December 2014 - The Dylan Project Veteran rocker Steve Gibbons and his band who now celebrate seventeen years of the Dylan Project perform an evening of Bob’s songs Tickets £15. For further information or to book tickets call the Citadel Box Office on 01744 735436 or visit the Citadel website www.citadel.org.uk. Other info: Biographies for each band on following pages Interviews and high resolution images available upon request CONTACT DETAILS Rebecca Hudson, Marketing Manager The Citadel, Waterloo Street, St. Helens WA10 1PX Tel: 01744 735436 Email: [email protected] Please visit www.citadel.org.uk for regular updates of our latest news releases and a comprehensive what’s on service. Page 2 of 4 Biographies Chantelle McGregor Imagine the tone of Robin Trower, the inspiration of Hendrix, the influence of Stevie Ray Vaughan, the energy of Bonamassa, the intensity of Walter Trout and the haunting vocal of Stevie Nicks all rolled into one........ then let me introduce Chantel McGregor, one of the most exciting rock and blues musicians that the UK has ever produced! Described as a prodigy, at 14 Chantel was told by major labels "great voice, but girls don't play guitar like that!" Wisely ignoring that advice, she enrolled at the world-renowned Leeds College of Music and has since stepped out in the pro-musician world. Her stunning live performances are proving that this is rock blues for the new age, played by a musician born with an effortless virtuosity, peppered by flights of incendiary guitar and flanked by moments of poise, grace and fluidity............ Chantel accolades so far include: Young Artist of the Year in the British Blues Awards 2011, Female Vocalist of the Year in the British Blues Awards 2012 and she has also been nominated for awards in two different categories in 2013, Female Vocalist and Guitar. "Chantel McGregor deserves to be held up as a messiah of blues-rock and given her own mountain. She doesn't strum or pick her guitar but almost bends and distorts it, as if she's channelling the ghost of Hendrix through her fingers" Nightshift, Oxford's music magazine Bootleg Blondie The SPIRIT in Deborah’s songs draw on the hurt, pain, joy and anger that come with life. For Deborah, that life has been shaped by being the younger sister of the late John Bonham, the drummer for Led Zeppelin. This introduction sparked in her the overwhelming desire to write and perform. “A Gifted Singer in Her Own Right, A Classy Set of Blues Rock” - Classic Rock Magazine Whilst Deborah’s music has a great deal of spirit, is also has bundles of soul. Her deep love and understanding of so many musical greats - Otis Redding, Etta James, Bonnie Raitt, Elkie Brooks, Lowell George and many more - all of whom are artists who surrounded themselves with great musicians who had that same 'feel'. And so it is with Deborah's band. It's also their instinctive affinity with the words being sung and how they absorb her emotions; sometimes soft, sometimes fierce. This superb band features: Peter Bullick (guitar), Ian Rowley (bass), Gerard Louis (keyboards) and Rich Newman (drums). A combination guaranteed to raise the roof wherever they go! “From and For the Heart, Soul and Feet, No One Does What They Do...We Need Them” - The BBC Limehouse Lizzy Limehouse Lizzy have been officially named one of the hardest working acts in the UK, alongside some of the country's biggest & most popular performers. They were accredited for their live shows by the Performing Rights Society, and received their award from PRS Chairman and Ivor Novello award-winning songwriter (Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Tom Jones) Guy Fletcher OBE. Renowned for an action-packed pyrotechnic-fuelled explosion of a show, Limehouse Lizzy continue to keep the spirit of Celtic rock icon Philip Lynott and his band Thin Lizzy alive, well and dominating stages worldwide. The band have also added a tribute in their set to the late Gary Moore (ex-Thin Lizzy guitarist and world renowned solo artist) who sadly passed away last year. Page 3 of 4 Attention to detail, playful audience interaction and that all important X-factor that leaves you with the feeling of witnessing the real thing have led to their performance being described as “beyond tribute”, by both audience and critics alike. Following the enormous success of their ˜Live & Dangerous” & ˜Dedication” tours, the band embarked upon their “Into the Limelight” tour to tie in with their appearance on an episode of BBC2’s ‘Arena’ documentary series of the same name. The tour travelled as far as a headline slot at a rock festival in Greece, and the Virgin Atlantic Music festival in Barbados. The band appeared alongside diverse world music acts, and played a Thin Lizzy set representing the celtic rock genre. In 2013 the band's European tour continues to explore and celebrate the artistic and musical legacy of the hard-living, hard-rocking, yet at times surprisingly tender and romantic artist that was Philip Lynott. This year they will be appearing in the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Holland and Belgium. Expect more of the Celtic influenced tracks like ”Whisky in the Jar” and “Black Rose”, amongst the usual razzamatazz and classic tracks “The Boys are Back in Town”, “Sarah” and many others we’ve come to expect from one of the most highly rated acts on the circuit. The Dylan Project The idea came about after a chance meeting between Steve Gibbons and Fairport Convention's Dave Pegg. They had been together in a band called the Uglys in the mid 1960s and are both confirmed Dylan fans. Steve invited PJ Wright, his guitarist in the Gibbons Band, Dave asked drummer Gerry Conway and Simon Nicol from Fairport, and they recorded the first Dylan Project CD in 1998. With the occasional addition of John "Rabbit" Bundrick from the Who's touring band, this lineup stayed together until 2006, when Simon was replaced by Phil Bond, who had played keyboards on their second album recorded the previous year.