Some sad news to start this year off. John Comish has decided to leave the band with immediate effect. John started Mama with John Wilkinson, Andrew Prince and James Cooper and has been a vital part of our success since. If you ever saw John live you will know what he brought to the band. There is no animosity on any part and its very likely that he will work with some of the Mama musicians in the future on other projects. Thanks for everything John.
We are thrilled to announce his replacement is Andy Keegan. Andy stood in for John at the recent New Brighton show in November and is an ex member of the Genesis tribute band The Carpet Crawlers. Andy is a massive Genesis fan and has already suggested some new songs for the band to perform. We would like to welcome Andy to Mama and we are looking forward to doing some shows with him.
And just to whet your appetite, we’ve included some mobile phone footage of Andy with us performing Entangled at New Brighton.
Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who came to see our show at The Floral Pavilion in New Brighton. What a show it was, largely due to the amazing audience. This venue never lets us down.
To celebrate, we’ve put together a quick highlights video that showcases some of the moments from the show – see above! As often as we can, we run a video camera to provide us with footage to share here on our website and this show was no different. If you would like to see a particular song in full from our New Brighton show, please let us know in the comments below. We’ll try our best to get the footage up on the website as fast as we can.
Vote now fellow Genesis fans! 🙂
And finally, don’t forget we have another show coming up this weekend. Saturday 6th October 2018 sees us return to The Core Theatre in Solihull. This is another great venue for us, so grab your tickets now and let’s get another Genesis party going. Hope to see some of you there.
Yes it’s us again… You know, Mama the chaps who play Genesis for you guys. We just thought we would let you know what has been happening during our summer break and remind you that we start the Autumn and Winter shows next month with a welcome return to The Cluny in Newcastle followed by the second visit this year to the Floral Pavilion in New Brighton.
Well apart from the usual summer holidays, the fact is that we all have other musical projects on the go outside of Mama which we’ve been busy with. John W and Dave have just appeared on an album by The Swan Chorus which has just been released on Bandcamp as a digital download. For those of you who are asking when the CD is out, please be patient. The band is looking at the response to the download before it makes a decision. If we get enough interest then a very limited edition may follow with extra demo’s and suchlike.
Dave has been involved in several projects. The Plenty album he recorded with Tim Bowness & Brian Hulse came out in April on Karisma Records, called “It Could Be Home”. It is available on download, CD and vinyl.
Dave will also feature on Tim Bowness’ next solo album due early 2019, where he plays bass on 3 tracks. Check out Tim Bowness here: www.facebook.com/timbowness
Finally he has been rehearsing with Nerve Toy Trio in preparation for their appearance at the Marsden Jazz Festival in October.
John C and JV have been involved with Pink Floyd tribute Vesbim Floyd and a performance of Tommy by The Who recently at the New Brighton Floral Pavilion, both of which were very successful indeed. More shows are planned for later this year and in 2019.
JV also has his covers band playing around the Merseyside area called No Filter. Find out more about them here: www.facebook.com/bandnofilter
A thunderstorm approaches
Now… Have we forgotten anything? Well yes actually. You may remember the chap who used to give us “three minutes of sheer thunder,” one James Archibald Cooper? Well James left the band in 2017 and we are pleased to say that he has been blackmailed into returning full time for us starting immediately. Mama would like to thank Tim Rothwell for all his hard work and wish him all the best for the future.
Speaking of James, you know his other band The Contenders are always gigging in and around Merseyside, so check them out if you want to hear some classic rock covers:
And the more likely reason that we haven’t updated the website recently? Probably the fact that the webmaster has been rather busy working on some other projects, the newest of which is The Comedy Circus. The launch show will be held at a brand new venue in Wigan called The Edge on the 31st October and it will feature four very talented stand-up comedians.
So there you have it. We’ve got new songs in the pipeline for 2019 as we need a set list revamp (post your ideas below). We also hope to be releasing a double live CD next year and we do have some swanky new T shirts for sale at our shows.
Hope to see you at a Mama show soon. 🙂
STOP PRESS: A rather exciting mystery project popped up on our radar. Mama have been asked to get involved in recording an album, details of which we cannot tell you at the moment. But hopefully we will explain all before the end of 2018….
Mama (Genesis tribute band) set to return to The Forum Theatre in Romiley, 2019!
Good news; after the success of our recent show in Romiley, we’ve sorted out a 2019 return date. We thought now would be a great time to let you know, so you can plan your diaries accordingly. We’re planning ours right now.
So, the date for the next show in Romiley will be Saturday 16th February 2019! Tickets for this show will be on sale from Monday 12th March on the theatre website. In the meantime, we thought you might like to check out another two videos we took from the recent Romiley show. We have for you…. Los Endos, with our unique Suppers Ready end section and Abacab!
If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, don’t forget we are appearing at The Floral Pavilion in New Brighton. That’s a resort, I’ve been told, so you could make a day of it! Tickets are available from the box office and right now, there’s a mere 26 left. So be quick!
Mama to perform their 2018 tour show at The Forum Theatre, Saturday 24th February 2018!
Four days to go to our next show and tickets are selling fast! If you want one (or indeed several), be sure to grab them now. You can buy tickets to our Forum Theatre show by visiting the theatres online box office.
We also have some other upcoming shows we’d like to highlight:
Saturday 10th March 2018 – The Floral Pavilion, New Brighton (tickets on sale now)
Saturday 12th May 2018 – Playhouse 2, Shaw (tickets go on sale six weeks prior to the show)
In other news, we were contacted by Jason Ritchie who told us about a great idea he’d had… Fifty Gigs in a Day took place on the 8th February this year and featured, like the title suggests, fifty different shows around the country raising awareness for Nordoff Robbins, the largest independent music therapy charity in the UK. Nordoff Robbins is dedicated to changing the lives of vulnerable and isolated people. It helps children with autism to communicate, reduces anxiety for those with dementia and provides comfort for those facing life threatening illnesses. If you’d like to find out more about the charity, please visit their website: www.nordoff-robbins.org.uk
Here at Mama HQ, we thought this was a great idea. However, we made a big mistake because we didn’t manage to post this news in time for the actual shows (really sorry Jason). The magical properties of music are all too often forgotten, so it’s great to see people getting actively involved in live music and entertainment and raising awareness and money to their chosen charity. If you’d like to help Jason, have a look at his Just Giving page here: www.justgiving.com
That’s all for now. We hope to see some of you at The Forum Theatre in Romiley this weekend, for what will surely be a great Genesis party. Do come and say hello if you’re there. The band will no doubt be wandering around chatting to friends and generally propping up the bar. 🙂