January 2010

Happy New Year!

How you all doing? Hope you had a great Christmas and New Years Eve and haven't broken too many of your resolutions yet.

As ever, we were mad busy over the festive season and it saw us travelling from Bognor for the Skool Reunion gig with Bucks Fizz, Sinitta and the one and only Chesney Hawkes to the Dorchester for a Christmas party to Dubai for a New Years Eve gig.

It's a tough job but someone has to do it. By the way, if you want to see these pics in all their glory you can in the Souled Out Gallery.

So what else is new in the world of Souled Out? Well despite the horrible weather outside, we've been getting lots of enquiries about booking the band for summer weddings and outdoor events. Hopefully the snow will have gone by then otherwise you won't be able to see me in my white suit!

If you want to book the band for your wedding then either give me a bell or drop me a line. The diary is filling up fast so you'd better be quick. Details are on the contact page.

We're playing a charity gig next month too and we'd like to invite you along. It's in support of SSAFA Forces Help and The Dream Factory childrens charity.

Souled Out & Guests
Friday 19th February 2009
Broxbourne Civic Hall
High Street
Hoddesdon
EN11 8BE

Doors open 7:30pm and tickets cost £15.

To book your tickets please call me on 07958 452065 or email me.

We can promise you a fantastic night out and all in aid of a couple of very good causes. The place was packed last year so book early to avoid disappointment.

Think that just about covers everything. I'm off out to clear the drive of snow. I can't believe how much of the old white stuff we've had over the last few weeks. As my wife said the other day, it's the first time she's seen six inches in years.

October 2009

I bet you thought I'd forgotten about you, didn't you?

Sorry for the lack of updates, folks, but we've had a manically busy year and I've not had a chance to keep you up to date with everything that's been going on. So here, in nice little bite sized chunks, is what we've been up to.

• Actually first I'll give you some brilliant news. Remember the gig we did for Melissa Huggins back in February? Thanks to everyones generosity Melissa was able to fly to the specialists in Boston for 2 months treatment and she got the results of her MRI scan last month and she's been given the all clear!
• We were part of the Soul Weekenders at Butlins this year performing alongside The Real Thing, Heatwave, Rose Royce and Jimmy James. These gigs were great fun and we're doing the Skool Reunion gig at Bognor 27 November alongside Bucks Fizz, 911, Chesney Hawkes and Sinitta. You can book your tickets at the Big Weekends website.
• Back in May we supported The Temptations at the Circus Tavern. It was a great gig and brilliant to see so many Souled Out fans in the audience.
• It was a busy summer for birthday parties, corporate functions and weddings this year including one for Southend United striker Alex Revell. You can see how much he enjoyed our performance on the Souled Out reviews page.
• We also performed at a number of local gigs including the Chigwell Summer Ball which was so successful they've rebooked us for next year.

So now you can see why I've not had a chance to update the website for ages. We've been mega busy! Our 2010 diary is already starting to fill up so if you want to book us for your wedding reception or corporate function you'd better get in contact soon.

This year we celebrated our 16th anniversary together as a band. Apparently the traditional anniversary gift for 16 years is holloware but since none of us have got a Scooby what holloware is we decided to give our audiences and fans the gift of sweet soul music.

Cheese!

January 2009

Wotcha folks! Ho-Ho-Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Years Eve. We were mega busy over the festive season performing at Christmas parties up and down the country before jetting off to Dubai to play at a NYE party. They were sheikhing their thing to the Souled Out Showband, let me tell you!

As always, I overdid it on the mince pies so will be pounding the streets of Hoddesdon so I can fit into me white suit again. I'll need to as well cuz we've got a busy few months coming up with a number of corporate do's, birthday bashes and a very important charity performance.

Melissa Huggins Fighting Fund Charity Bash

The beautiful young lady on the right is Melissa Huggins. Sadly Melissa has been diagnosed with a rare Ependymoma Brain Tumour and needs specialist treatment that is not available in the UK. Her story has been featured on GMTV, London Tonight, BBC, Channel 5 News and the Daily Mail. Through the hard work of her family and friends, she is currently half way towards raising the £150,000 she needs for the life saving operation.

British Airways, Virgin Active and Brentford Football Club have all helped raise funds for Melissa and we're proud to be involved in this worthy cause. It is one that is very close to home for me. My wife recently lost a very good friend to a brain tumour and I personally suffered from one when I was 13 years old.

Souled Out - Live
Friday 20th February 2009
Broxbourne Civic Hall
High Street
Hoddesdon
EN11 8BE

Doors open 7:30pm and tickets cost £15 with all proceeds going to Melissa's Fighting Fund and The Isabel Hospice.

To book your tickets please call me on 07958 452065 or email me.

For more information about the fund raising activities, please visit the Melissa Fighting Fund website.

October 2008

Blimey! Has it really been 5 months since I last said hello? Sorry about that...

So what have we been up to? Well the wedding season was very busy for us and we travelled the length and breadth of the country to entertain your wedding reception guests. We love performing at weddings. They're always so much fun although I always drop some wedding cake on me white suit...We've just opened up our diary for 2009 so if you want to book Souled Out for your wedding reception entertainment, give me a call.

We had a busy summer performing at various corporate functions including a hectic weekend where we played in the Isle of Man one day and the Lake District the next. The old Souled Out tour bus has wracked up the miles this summer, let me tell you! We're now gearing up for the Christmas office party season so I'll be digging out the Santa suits and making sure the sleigh has got an MOT this year.

Some of you may well have spotted me on Who Dares Sings a couple of months back. That was a lot of fun even if I didn't know any of the songs! I swear that Denise Van Outen fancied me, you know. Just as well the missus was there, eh?

Rock 'em

May 2008

Hullo folks. Johnny Cat here just bringing you up to speed with what's happening in the world of Souled Out.

As ever we've been busy bunnies running up and down the length of the country performing at parties and functions. We spent two days performing at the beautiful Castle Hotel in Aberdeen. It was a great couple of gigs and, as you can see from the pics on the right, we managed to find some time to chill out too!

There are some great photos from the gigs in the Souled Out Gallery taken by the talented James Kelly. I promise there are no more pictures of me in the hot tub...

Thanks to everyone who has bought copies of the new Souled Out DVD. If you haven't picked up a copy yet we've still got some left at the knock down price of £9.99.

For everyone who has been asking when we're playing our next public gig, I've got some good news for you. We're playing at the Blackmore Mid Summer Music Festival Saturday 12th July. Tickets cost £15 per adult, £10 per concession and family tickets are available too. Visit the Festival website for more information.

This year we celebrate 15 years together as a band. We've had some great times over the years and, judging by the feedback, so have you. A big thank you to everyone who has booked us to play at their functions. We love performing so it's a real privilege to be asked along.

Rock 'em

February 2008

It's been a busy ol' time for us over the last few weeks, let me tell you. We've been rushed off our feet, we have. I'm so knackered that I'm going to let the guys at our management company, CBS Group, tell you what we've been up to whilst I have a little lie down...

Souled Out performed at a series of events for the Financial Services Industry and became resident on Park Lane for the best part of two weeks in January. First up was the Independent Financial Review Awards at Grosvenor House on 14 January, where they worked alongside The Jools Holland Orchestra. HRH The Princess Royal was guest of honour while Graham Norton hosted the awards presentation ceremony. Souled Out's massive 15 piece party show band performed a fantastic set and is truly one of the few bands in the UK who can follow the mighty Jools Holland Orchestra.

On 22 January, Souled Out moved on to The Park Lane Hilton hotel and stayed there for The PFI Awards on 23 January where Hugh Dennis was the host and 24 Jan for the ISR Awards, hosted by Michael McIntyre. Then back they came again on 30 January for the European Venture Capital Awards, hosted by William Hague.

This was a great run of events for this superb party band and each night Souled Out wowed the audience with their riotous stage show and magnificent musicianship. Souled Out had the pleasure of working alongside Reality, who produced each event and this was the fourth year running that Souled Out have provided the entertainment for these events.

You can 'bank' on Souled Out for a great party - every time!

See? Told you we were busy. So busy, in fact, that I forgot to tell you about our review in The Stage newspaper.

Anyway, thanks to our webmaster Mike and the guys at CBS we can finally bring you a preview of the new Souled Out DVD. It's 3 songs from the Party in the Park gig last year - Celebration, Ain't No Stopping Us Now and Disco Inferno. If you're looking to book us for your wedding reception entertainment or you're after a corporate party band, let us know and we can send you a copy of the full DVD. In the meanwhile you can enjoy a little taster by watching the Souled Out video montage.

Rock 'em

January 2008

Happy New Year, folks! I hope you had a great Christmas and are looking forward to 2008. I know we are at Souled Out. It's looking like it's going to be a very busy year for us so we've put the ol' tour bus in for its MOT and The Fish is learning how to ride a bike just in case.

Looking back on 2007, we had a really great time and met some fantastic people along the way. Although we've been doing this for 15 years now, we all still love performing and it doesn't matter whether it's a huge gig like the one we did in Barrow in front of 8000 people or any of the smaller weddings we played at. We just get a massive buzz out of playing and judging by what people have said about us, so do you.

So what's happening with the UK's favourite party band? Well we've got a busy January ahead of us as we're going to be travelling up and down the country performing at a number of functions and parties. We're rapidly filling our wedding diary for this year and Russ and the guys at the CBS Group have been busy little beavers and bagged us some brilliant functions.

We've added some new pictures to the Gallery so head on over and have a mooch around. We're also hoping that our webmaster Mike will put some video clips online for you to enjoy. C'mon, Mikey! You've had the new Souled Out DVD for months now!

Righty ho, I think that's just about covered everything. I'm off to buy a new white suit. All those mince pies have played havoc with me weight and since the only alternative is to go down the gym, I figured it was time to pick up a spare. Suit, that is, not tyre.

Rock 'em

September 2007

All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey.

Don't worry, we've not gone all Mamas & Papas on you here at Souled Out. Just thought I'd mention what I can see out my window at the moment.

Anyway, just thought I'd let you know what we've been up to. We had a really busy Summer gigging all over the place. We played to 8000 people at the Party in the Park in Barrow, performed at the Weston Super Mare summer festival to 1000 people as well as having a busy time throughout the wedding season. If you want to book Souled Out for your wedding entertainment for next year then you'd better get in quick!

We've got a couple of new faces in the band so here's a big virtual welcome to new singer Julie McKenna and drummer Bradley who is sharing the hotseat with Danny although not literally, you understand...

Exciting news is that we're just about to launch our new DVD and CD soon! As soon as it's available we'll let you know!

Lastly we'll be adding some new pics to the Souled Out showband gallery in the next few weeks. Nick Kontou took some brilliant pics of us recently and we're wading through them at the moment to find the best of them. The guy is a legend. He even managed to make me look handsome in a couple of them! Check out his photography website - he's brilliant!

Rock 'em

May 2007

Greetings, pop pickers! Johnny Cat here just to let you know that we're still alive and enjoying the wonderful Bank Holiday weekend weather...

I know we've not updated the site in ages but that's cuz we've been busy gigging all over the country including the Orkney Islands! The Soul Weekender was a good laugh and we're off to Barrow in a couple of weeks time to play in front of 5000 people so we're looking forward to that although I might not wear my white suit, if you know what I mean!

Rock 'em

January 2007

Happy New Year, folks. I hope you had a great Christmas and are looking forward to the new year. I know we are in Souled Out as it's already shaping up to be a corker.

We had a busy Christmas and New Year period gigging all over the country including playing with Marc Almond and Jools Holland again (see new pics in the Gallery). We've now put the Christmas party hits back in their box for another year and are back to playing good old fashioned soul and dance music.

Talking of soul music, we're confirmed on the line up for the Soul Weekender at Butlins in Minehead alongside other acts including Geno Washington, The Commitments, Alexander O'Neil and The Drifters. It takes place 23-26 February and it's going to be a cracking weekend. You can book your tickets online at the Butlins website.

I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce you to our new drummer, Danny Boy. Danny has played with artists including Nik Kershaw and Chaz and Dave. You can read more about him on our Bio's page and talking of drums, Souled Out would like to thank Danny for setting us up with those nice folks at Premier who have provided us with some sparkly new kit. Cheers fellas!

Right, I'm off down the gym to burn off all those mince pies. Hopefully see you at a gig soon. Don't forget if you want to book us for your wedding reception or corporate function, drop us a line.

Rock 'em

November 2006

Well it's nearly Christmas and the goose is getting fat. We're not as we've been seriously busy burning off the calories over the last few months with a packed calendar of gigs. The office Christmas party season has started so we've dusted off all the old classic Christmas songs and incorporated them into our set. It's great fun watching everyone getting on the dance floor for 'Merry Christmas Everyone' in November!

On a serious note, I've been getting a bit of stick from the rest of the guys because I only ever poke fun at them on the website. They think I've been a bit unfair so, to show that Johnny Cat can take it as well as dish it out, here's a pic of me from Butlins in Clacton on Sea when I was 16. Check out the Barnet!

Thanks everyone for stopping by and making the Souled Out website a success. Hopefully see you at your Christmas party soon.

Rock 'em

A Big Thank You

Souled Out have been performing live gigs for the last 14 years. We've played all kinds of gigs. Pub gigs. Wedding receptions. Corporate functions. Birthday parties. Barmitzvahs. Retirement bashes. You name it, we've played it. Now we're a very good band, no mistake about it, but we couldn't have done all this without those lovely people at the CBS Group. We've been working with them for the last 7 years and they have been responsible for getting us tons of corporate and wedding gigs over that time so to Russ, Steve, Nigel, Kelly, Heather and all the other folks at the CBS Group

Thank You

September 2006

Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas everyone!

No, I've not gone mad. We did a Christmas gig in Birmingham this month in front of 6000 people and we rocked! It was a corporate gig for a company advertising their Xmas product range so who else would they want to come along and make the party go with a bang? It was a cracking weekend. We did a set full of all the traditional Christmas songs - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, Merry Xmas Everybody, I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday....All the old favourites and we had the place rocking!

You can see more pictures of the gig in the Gallery.

It's not too late to book us for your Christmas party. If you want a Christmas Party with SOUL drop us a line.

The new website is proving to be a big hit with over 6000 visitors and loads of booking requests. Thanks to everyone who have stopped by and signed up to the mailing list. We look forward to seeing you at a gig soon.

Rock 'em

July 2006

Hey there gang, it's Johnny Cat again with an update to what's happening in the world of Souled Out.

Last month saw us performing at a number of functions across the South East including a couple of wedding receptions, some charity gigs and a corporate event. This month sees us doing much the same. We've got five wedding receptions over the next few weeks so I'll be on a diet in September so I can fit into me white suit after all the wedding cake!

We've had over 3,500 visitors to the new site since we launched it at the end of Feburary and the mailing list is growing every day. If you want to keep up to date with what's happening with Souled Out make sure you bookmark this page.

Rock 'em

May 2006

Sorry it's taken me so long to write an update. We've been very busy bunnies over the last few weeks performing at a number of corporate events, a couple of birthday parties, a barmitzvah and our first wedding reception of the year! This will hopefully go some way to explaining to those people on the mailing list why we haven't done any public shows recently.

Souled Out are one of the most requested function bands in the UK so we don't always get time to play the circuit like we used to. We're pretty much fully booked until the end of the summer with weddings, charity gigs and corporate events. If you're looking to book us for your wedding reception, private party or to play a public gig you'd better drop me a line pretty soon.

We are looking to add a couple of public gigs to the calendar in the next few weeks so keep checking the website for updates or join the mailing list.

The website has been very popular since we relaunched it back in February. Thanks to everyone for your kind words about the revamped Souled Out site. Mike has added a new section this month - the Gallery is now online featuring pics of the band in action at various gigs including the gig in Barrow (see February news below for more details). More pics will be added soon.

Rock 'em!

February 2006

It's the official launch of the new Souled Out website and everyone in the band want to thank our webmaster, Mike, for all his hard work. Cheers, fella!

For regular visitors to the old site, have we got some catching up to do! Souled Out played with some of the biggest names and faces in the business over the Christmas and New Year period.

First of all we travelled to Gloucester Football Club to play at a party held by the worlds fifth richest man, Andrew Michael, CEO of Fasthosts. According to Radio 1 the party cost nearly £1million! We appeared with Patrick Kielty, Peter Kay, Jonathan Ross, Boney M and Rose Royce. As if that wasn't enough we also played with a bunch of lads from Lowestoft who go by the name of The Darkness. Apparently they're a popular beat combo who have had records in the Hit Parade. We'd never heard of 'em....

Next stop was the Grosvenor House Hotel in swanky Mayfair. The evening was hosted by Jonathan Ross (we think he's stalking us) and we were on the same bill as Mica Paris and Jools Holland with his Big Band which also featured Sam Brown and Ruby Turner.

Onto the Souled Out tour bus for a quick trip Oop North to Barrow in Furness to support Heather Small in front of 5000 people. You know what? If I had to hang my mic up now it would have been worth it just for that one gig.

January saw the band playing in The Hilton Sheraton, Hilton Park Lane, The Grosvenor and the Dorchester two nights in a row...all in the space of one week!

February saw us playing a few more private parties in less salubrious environments and then finishing off the month playing at one of our favourite venues, the Broxbourne Civic Hall.

Rock 'em!