Chip, Brian & Dave GLAD TO BE HERE oh yes GLAD To BE ANYWHERE!

Once upon a time in the land of rock-a-bye around about the wondrous days of yore’
There were five young lads with but one dream, to make music and play it for ever more’.

Right that’s enough of that, so let me tell you about the latest tour for me (Brian
Poole), Chip Hawkes and Dave Munden, all original Tremeloes. There would actually have`been four of us if we could have persuaded Rick Westwood to delay his retirement for a few months. But because it had to be original Tremilos (that’s the cockney way of spelling it .innit’), the decision was made to go with the only working ones left. so Chip, Dave and I will be performing all the hits that we can fit in on the tour in October and November 2015. Also in our gang will be Richard Marsh a long time friend of Chip’s who takes on the mantle of being a big brother to three old geezers who should be old enough to look after themselves but AIN’T. There was a period of years when all three of us shared vocals on stage in the mid sixties so it wasn’t hard to put together a set which we are proud to present. We had a run through the other day and chip said to Dave and me’ Did you ever think fifty odd years ago that you would be standing on stage with me all these years later’. I couldn,t help myself and had to say ‘well to be honest I didn’t even think l’d be standing, let alone on stage!’

You don,t need any history lessons at this point because most of our followers know our story inside out from the early days in 1956 right up to the present’. The bit that might need looking at is the last 5 – 6 years when we were all touring separately. Dave Munden had and still has his Tremeloes, constantly working in the UK and Europe’ Chip was very active with his Class of ’64 (best name ever, wish l’d have thought of that!), and I was touring, seven years in Reelin’n’Rockin and a few with Solid Silver Sixties and the Oh Boy show. Obviously, at the time we all thought we were bullet proof and that even in our 60’s and 70’s we could go on forever, but sometimes nature just gives you a reminder that it’s there and you need to take notice. All three of us have had these reminders and with the help of our great families and friends have fully recovered.

Well that’s all for now about ailments and ointments because we’ve still got a job to do. There have been quite a few times when people have asked us all to go back to the very earliest days of BP & the Tremeloes and put together a show that will take in all the hits from the early 60’s to ‘nearly now’. As most of you know, cos gawd bless ya’ you have been to our shows and given us a great time, Chip and me have been performing for quite a few years together. We had wanted to do this for many years and were encouraged by Robert Pratt of Royal Chimes to work on this and tour. When we were asked recently to tour with an original line up we asked our old friend Dave Munden to come and ioin us centre stage for a UK tour and play only the biggest hits that we had actually sung way back in the 60’s. We all decided that like Chip and me (oh well I gotta tell ya the crew call us Chip and pinl. We would all take the middle of the stage and sing together iust like we had been doing recently. At this point, I think I should remind you that there are many really funny stories we can tell on stage, but even more that we definitely could not. Remember we weren’t always clean cut professional musicians and were for many years a young cockney Essex group of ROCK-N-ROLLERS. When we first got the band together, Dagenham Motown was a thriving music area, with many bands just waiting for the limelight. Good thing is quite a few actually made it too, e.g. Sandie Shaw, Rubettes, Christie, Tony Rivers & The Castaways to name but a few.

We have Badfinger, The Troggs, lvy League and the Pacemakers with us on this tour, some anthems there eh. Well that’s enough of that for now. Will write some more once we get stuck in. lf you come to see us please totally misbehave, because photos will be taken and reports given. serious now, thanks all for giving us your friendship and love over all these years and we look forward to seeing you on this tour and on the already booked next year’s tours.