A BIG WELCOME TO KEV OUR NEW GUITARIST

Sadly a few months ago James our guitarist decided to leave the band to concerntrate on his other music projects so we wish him all the best with this and also thank him for all his time  and effort with FIRESTAR.

So its a big welcome to Kevin Waterfield our new guitarist. Kev has a wealth of experience playing in function bands and has spent the last couple of months learning our sets and has fitted in really well. He's a big Queen fan so look out for hisSolo in our version of " Don't stop me now" ....over to you Kev.

JON'S BECOME  AN ASSOCIATE OF THE ROYAL SCHOOL OF MUSIC

Our keyboard player Jon likes a challenge and recently decided to take  his ABRSM ( Associated Board of the Royal School of Music) level 4 Diploma in Music Performance on piano. As expected Jon passed with flying colours. This qualification is well above grade 8 piano and is a good reflection of the quality of musicianship Jon and the rest of the guys bring to the band.

SCOUTS ROCK AT SALISBURY GUILD HALL ANNUAL  "HOLLY BALL"

The annual Salisbury Scouts Charity "Holly Ball" at Salisbury Guildhall was a great success raising well over £1000 towards Scout's camp funds. Well done to Cindy for organising this years event for the first time. They were a brilliant  bunch of people  who were on the dance floor rocking it from the start to the finish of our two live  sets and a real pleasure to play to such an enthusiastic audience .. hopefully see you all again next year ...

A  FANTASTIC EVENING AT SALISBURY RUGBY CLUB IN AID OF CHILDREN IN NEED

Our recent gig in aid of Children In Need on Saturday 22nd Nov at Salisbury Ruby Club went really well. The Rugby Club offered their function room and the bar and staff for the event for free and the band played for Free too to raise funds for a really good cause. The venue got pretty busy considering the very cold weather and we had a great audience to play to. We did 2 x 1 hour sets and also provided the disco music and lights and had plenty of people up dancing throughout the night. A  friend of ours (Steve) kindly took the charity buckets around for people to donate and there were also posters about the club with CIN QR codes for people to donate on line. The total raised in the buckets was £215 cash and we reckon about another £185 in online donations so we reckon a good total of approx £400 was raised on the night. So a big THANK YOU to Salisbury RC and to all the people who turned up to support this event. We really enjoyed playing to you all. 

FIRESTAR & SALISBURY RUGBY CLUB RASING MONEY FOR CHILDREN IN NEED

FIRESTAR and Salisbury Rugby Club are putting an event on to raise money for Children in Need. its on Friday 22nd of November and kicks off at 7.30pm . We are playing 2 x 1 hours sets of dancy chart covers for FREE, there will also be Disco music & lights and a bar . Its Free entry but we are hoping everyone will have a great night and donate to CIN  whatever they can afford on the night. All proceeds will go to Pudsy Bear and CIN. Be great to see as many people there as possible. so we can raise as much money as possible at this event.

PUMP UP THE BASS... WITH A STINGRAY 35 

Chris has had his eye on a Stingray bass guitar for several months now, so it was great to see him walk into our last practice with a Sterling Stingray 35 bass under his arm.

Lovely looking piece of kit in a light blue colour that sounds fantastic too. Chris has also recently moved over to In ear monitoring and replaced his heavy Mackie SRM 450 monitor cab with the much lighter and easier to carry around set of MEE Audio MX2 Pro Hybrid Dual Driver IEM's. He used both the Stingray and the in ears at our latest gig to very good effect.

UPGRADING TO ROLANDS TD50X FLAGSHIP DRUM MODULE...

As always the band are always looking to upgrade the band's pro level of equipment. So we have recently upgraded Trev's Roland TD50 drum module to their latest Flagship TD50X unit. It will take him a few weeks to re-programme all the various kits he will need for our live sets. But once completed what was already an amazing live drum sound is now going to sound even better, giving our rythmn section an even thumpier drum sound for you to dance to.

THE FIRST BUT DEFINITELY NOT THE LAST...

We recently played at a 6Oth Birthday Party at Salisbury Rugby Club which went really well. We've not played there for a while, but funnily enough a few years ago it was the venue for the bands very first ever gig. 

Having spent months practicing when we started the band up, we needed to try out our new Bose F1 PA and the lighting set up and playthrough the sets to a live audience. So we arranged a gig for friends & families. At the time Salisbury Rugby Club kindly let us have the venue at a discounted price for this first try out. 

The gig went down really well and gave us all a big confidence boost and a bit of a buzz with everything working well including the 2x 1 hour sets going down with everyone. We've played the Rugby Club since the 1st gig and we're hoping this latest one will certainly not be the last.

IRIG , GIVING A FAR BETTER IDEA OF OUR LIVE SOUND

With a new Face Book page up and running and more media content  to post esspecially live videos from gigs, we looked into how to record a much better idea of our live sound on our videos. 

To the rescue came iRig who produce a gadget called "iRig Stream" This feeds the live outfront sound from our mixer into a smartphone when we're videoing. This replaces the Smart phones low quality mic recording with our outfront  sound mix, giving a much  better idea of what our audience will be listening too.  

So  in future our videos will be able to give you a taste of the superb live sound the band can create at any gig. 

FANTASTIC 2023 NYE PARTY AT RWGC

A fantastic gig at Royal Winchester Golf Club this New Years Eve  which went really well. The set up was easy and after guests arrived for pre- drinks and a three course meal, we warmed the dancers up with some disco music & lights. We took to the stage for a our 1st set around 10.00pm and what a brilliant group of guests we had! They were all up dancing straight away and showed off their moves the whole night,  right through to Auld Lang Syne and the final Fireworks display...brilliant gig ...and fantastic audience...

TIME HAS FLOWN AS WE NEAR THE BIG 2023 NYE COUNTDOWN 

Twelve  months has flown by since we last played at Royal Winchester Golf Club on NYE in 2022 which went really well. So much so that we were booked to play New Years Eve 2023 only a couple of weeks after the last  gig there. So its been great to have this  years RWGC gig to look forwards to again with the bands new line up. We've recently revamped our version of Auld Lang Syne  ready for the big countdown at midnight on 31st December...10...9...8...

CHARITY BALL TO HELP SALIBURY SCOUTS

We recently played  at a charity ball in aid of one of Salisbury's Scout groups. Sandy and her family who have been involved in Scouts for many years have organised plenty of these Holly Balls over the years helping Scouts out  and they put a lot of hard work into setting this event up too. We felt it only fair to reduce our usual fee to help the event reach its aim, of making funds for equipment for their Scout group. The black tie event at Salisbury Guildhall Ballroom was well attended  and every one had a great evening eating, drinking and dancing the night away to the band. The evening  was over,  all too soon. But well Done Sandy and look forward to the next one .. 

Xmas Scout Ball photos courtesey of Spencer Mulholland