The Central Band Of The Royal British Legion profile picture

The Central Band Of The Royal British Legion

About Me

The Central Band is the premier and flagship band of The Royal British Legion and strive to be making music at the highest level.
The band has been going for 62 glorious years, and still has a couple of original members! We play what feels like thousands of gigs a year; everything from the finals at Wimbledon in June, through to Buckingham Palace last year. We've also done the Royal Tournament, the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall, and more recently played with the RPO at Central Hall, Westminster.
We also do many public concerts too, where you can come and see us even if you're not a member of the royal family or a tennis superstar!
The Central Band is entering a new era under the musical direction of Captain David Cole MVO MMUS ARCM RM. He's shorter than our old DoM, but dances better and is bringing a whole host of new music with him. Feel free to bring your pirate hats to our forthcoming concerts - he's put the Pirates of The Caribbean score into the programme! Aaaarrrrr!
Keep an eye out on our forthcoming gigs section, and be sure to subscribe to the blog, as we'll be updating it with all kinds of exciting news.
We've also just covered the Klaxon's for Radio 1!

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 20/09/2006
Band Website: www.centralband.com
Band Members: Far too many to name here of course - there's about 50 of us!
Influences: Miller, Bernstein, Bidgood, Sousa, Shostakovitch, Morricone, Lloyd-Webber, Blankenburg, Schonberg
Sounds Like: The best band you've ever heard and one you'd want to buy all the records of, and you can do so --- here!
Record Label: Clovelly
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

Best wishes to Kansas marching band

We've just seen this on the BBC site - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7513017.stmLooks painful! Get well soon!x
Posted by on Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:03:00 GMT

Ponies, not horses!

Hello helloThe band received somewhat of an education this month - we played at the Guard's Polo club and got taught all the subtle nuances of the game. We now know that they're not horses, they're Po...
Posted by on Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:22:00 GMT

A big summer coming up

Hello everyoneWell... it's been a busy few weeks for us, plenty of gigs and of course, plenty of rehearsals!We played on the Isle Of Wight (or Izzle of Wizzle if you're a local!) and had a fabulous ti...
Posted by on Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:11:00 GMT

Leamington Spa concert

Ouch. Hearing your alarm go off at 6.30am on a Sunday is just not nice. But yesterday we were alll brave folk and headed up to Leamington Spa to play a concert in the afternoon. A few of us were more ...
Posted by on Mon, 14 Apr 2008 01:47:00 GMT

Not long until the concert with Hayley Westenra!

Hello everyoneI hope you’re all well and not too chilly today!You’ve probably all got a big circle in the calendar already but our concert with Hayley Westenra is rapidly approaching and w...
Posted by on Mon, 17 Mar 2008 06:04:00 GMT

Hastings gig this weekend

Ah, how lovely. A day by the seaside in the sunshine. This weekend we hopped on down to Hastings for a lovely gig at their White Rock Theatre. It was great fun, especially as we were playing a relativ...
Posted by on Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:17:00 GMT

Hayley Westenra joining us at Fairfield Halls

Hi everyoneWe're thrilled to announce that Hayley Westenra will be joining the Central Band of the Royal British Legion on stage at the Fairfield Hall, Croydon for an scintillating evening of s...
Posted by on Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:57:00 GMT

Our MTV2 gig

Well... last night The Central Band Of The Royal British Legion lived the rock n roll dream. We played a gig for MTV2 over in Shepherd's Bush, for the 5th birthday celebrations of their flagship rock ...
Posted by on Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:51:00 GMT

MTV heart us!

Oh my word, we're all very excited. Next week the Central Band of the Royal British Legion will be playing at MTV 2's birthday party! Gonzo's 5th birthday bash!We can't wait, we're opening for Queens ...
Posted by on Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:36:00 GMT

The new album

A weekend off for the Central Band! The last in a while though!This time last week we were all getting rather cosy with each other, squeezing into a recording studio in Dover to record this year's alb...
Posted by on Sun, 23 Sep 2007 08:26:00 GMT