NEWS

Black Rose are pleased to confirm that we will be playing a special benefit gig at Cramlington Village Club on Thursday April 5th, to raise money for the Scott Bell Fund (see Scott's web-site). Scott is a well known ex semi-professional footballer (Blyth Spartans and Bedlington Terriers), who last year was diagnosed with Motor Neurone disease.

Scott has worked diligently in the last year, to raise funds for research into this condition, and to date the amount raised stands at over £40k !!!

Come on guys...this is an unbelievably worthy cause and we need your help and support to make it a success for Scott. Please don't just say you will attend...please contact our bass player Paul Allan on 07588 610266 to let him know how many tickets you require and he will get them to you!!

Black Rose will be supported on this special occasion by Paul's 16 year old son Joe Allan, whose singer songwriters abilities have seen him play gigs at the O2 Academy, The Sage and Newcastle Riverside venues. It promises to be a great night (with a Bank Holiday the following day)..so please help by snapping up your tickets...NOW!!!

Awesome gig at The Office last night. Really good to be back in South Shields again!!

Well, we've got a short break coming up which is giving us some much needed rehearsal time and also our first chance since Paul rejoined the band to work on some new material for the set. Watch this space!

A few issues at our end have meant we lost touch with the web server but we're now up and running.

Paul joined the band back in 2006 after Big Al had to leave for medical reasons.

Paul left to pursue other projects in 2007 playing with the likes of Slip of the Tongue. We're excited to welcome Paul back on stage with us and he should be unleashed in a few weeks!

Al has decided to finally retire and hang up his bass. Al and his family have played a massive part in the shaping of Black Rose and we have nothing but admiration for him, his family, his talents and his commitments.

Please join us in wishing him every success for the future. Al will still be around though as for many months now, he and his son have provided a top quality PA service to the band which we will be continuing to use and Al's involvement with that will not be affected by his leaving the band.

We've had a few PC issues at our end which has prevented us from getting access to the servers.

Anyway, we're back and there's not much to tell you apart from Big Al has decided to leave the band...

The Red Sails Festival in Portstewart, Ireland and The Venue in Dumfries were such a fantastic experience for the band.

From the minute we hit the road very early on Thursday morning till we got back very early on Sunday morning, every moment was utterly memorable!!

We met some beautiful people, saw some beautiful places, ate some beautiful food, drank some beautiful drinks and to top it all off, played 2 brilliant shows! From the families and Bikers of the festival to the die hard Lizzy nuts in Dumfries, the audiences were out of this world.

We'd like to thank everyone involved in making us feel so welcome, from Stephen H and his family in Portstewart to Faither Jack and friends in Dumfries and everyone in between!!

Also thanks for all the photos and videos which are coming through thick and fast!!

We'll hopefully have some photos and maybe some video from the gig to put on the site shortly so keep checking back!

Now its onwards and upwards - We're back into rehearsals again to prepare for the next show and its

Mark blew us away at the auditions and rehearsing the set with him has been really enjoyable.

Mark has an impressive background and is also currently playing with local band Four Worried Men (Go see them.. they're great!!)

Please bare with us whilst we get the rest of the site updated with some stuff about Mark.

We'd just like to say a hug big thanks to the very talented Graeme Wall for rehearsing the set with us just for this show.

We're really pleased to tell you that we've been invited to play at "The Venue" in Dumfries, Scotland. The Venue is a fantastic place and holds some really fond memories for the band as this is where we first met Philomena Lynott back in 2005!

Anyone who wants to see the band in a foreign country but can't make the show in Ireland... get yourself up to this show!!

Black Rose are extremely pleased to tell you that we have been invited to Port Stewart, Northern Ireland to play as part of The Red Sails Festival in July this year.

I don't think the site has been updated yet but to give you a taste of what its all about have a look at the link below.

Well... Geordie has played his last gig with Black Rose it's with a tear in our eyes we say goodbye!!

Through George's 12 years with the band we've gone from strength to strength and had some great experiences such as Recording an Album, Newcastle City Hall, Dedication Dumfries, Rock for Richmond, meeting Philomena Lynott and loads of others I just don't have time to list..

We'll miss you mate but best wishes in your new project... May The Force be with you ;)

Anyway...The show must go on!! We're back into rehearsals with our new drummer and you can catch us at the O2 Academy in Newcastle on April 24th where we have drafted in the very talented Graeme Wall to stand in on drumming duties for the show.

I've taken down the link to the Guestbook as it wasn't being used and lets be honest, most people use Facebook etc.. when making comments.

George's last gig with Black Rose is only a week away now. We're really looking forward to the show but not saying goodbye!!

But alas, we must move on. We've been spending some time with a few drummers and I'm pleased to announce we've found our man. More details will follow shortly. I'd just like to thank everyone who came along and we were blown away by some of the talent that wanted to join the band.

Black Rose are truly and deeply saddened by the news of Gary Moore's death. Gary was a true guitar legend and an extremely dedicated musician. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family during this very difficult time.

Its been a lovely break and we hope you guys had a great Christmas and fantastic New Year..

The biggest news is our very own time keeper/tub thumper was offered a position in the North East's Premier Rock Band and Geordie is now a fully fledged member of The Force

Well done Chirpy!!! George is continuing his drumming with Black Rose and also Lovedrive and we're all really pleased for him.

We've had very limited time together as a band over the last few months and certainly since the website has been updated. However, we had just enough time to get some rehearsing done and even a few shows!! Firstly we've had 2 awesome gigs with Maiden England in Hexham and Whitley Bay. Great venues and certainly very different from what we're used to. We were also invited to play a very private party for an old friend of ours which we really enjoyed doing and were extremely flattered to have been asked to have been part of this. Thanks Ron!!!

I've added some photos from the 2 recent gigs with Maiden England (A big thanks to Phil Bennett for these... what an eye for a picture this guy has!!!)

We've got a few local gigs coming up (check out the live shows link) and we're really looking forward to those so we'll see you at one of these shows soon!

Thanks to everyone who turned out, once again proving that there are still bucket loads of people who love the music of Thin Lizzy. Big thanks to Colin Smoult for providing us with some big speakers, lights and vanilla smoke!!

We're getting ready for the Hexham gig now so we look forward to seeing you there.

Yes yes... it looks exactly the same as it did in 2008 but I've basically had to delete the old website and it put it back together from scratch.

In august 2009 after a year off the road, we were offered the chance of a one off re-union gig. At the time I dismissed the idea of doing a one off show but after a few conversations with the band and talking to a few of the fans it was apparent that there was enough interest to get together to at least have a chat about it. After a few weeks we got together and discussed the idea, knocked up a list of songs we would consider playing as part of a "re-union" show and booked a date to get together as a band and play through the songs. Without any personal rehearsal time we all got together to see where we were as a band and what we remembered. Enjoying the rehearsal as much as we did we agreed that doing a one off show wasn't such as bad idea and would accept the invitation. Unfortunately Colin Dixon put it to us that he was just too busy at the time with other projects he had on hand and the time scale in which the rest of the band wanted to move on this was just not workable for him.

We got our heads together and agreed that if we were going to do this re-union show we'd have to do it without Colin. With Col's blessing we got our heads together and threw a few names in the hat. It was always going to be a tough job to sell as we were basically going to ask someone to come in, learn a 2 hour set and say goodbye. In December we'd heard that "Slip of the Tounge" ( a local Whitesnake tribute) had parted company with one of their guitarists due to his external commitments. Having seen the guy play before and George having played a few shows with him we thought we'd put the offer to him. In walked Paul "hook" Richardson and after an initial get together in the rehearsal room, the question "how could SOTT let this guy go?" was pretty much the first question on everybody's mind.

Paul happily agreed to step into the band, rehearsals began and on the 27th March 2010 Black Rose hit the stage again. We'd agreed that we wouldn't just dismiss the idea of any more gigs but preferred to see what the reaction was like and how we played together live.

The show was fantastic for us and we agreed after the show that a few more dates wouldn't hurt...