Horsham Rocks resumes its monthly showcase

Always on the first Thursday of the month, the next night will be on Thursday, July 1 at 7.30 when the featured bands will be Lithium, Voodoo Lake and Common Buzzards.

The venue can now take walk-ins on the night but because of social-distancing and reduced capacity, spokesman Jamie Stanley (aka Stan/Mailman) urges people to get their tickets in advance from the venue’s website.

“It’s basically a showcase for local bands that would not necessarily get a chance to play this kind of venue, and if The Rec Rooms like them, they might end up getting a support slot. It is basically a way of getting local bands into our local venues. I was doing this in 2019, most months, and then right up to the start of the pandemic.

“It is basically three bands as a rule, but if we have got one slightly bigger band then we might just have one other band. I know a lot of bands so I contact them directly or there is a form on The Rec Rooms’ website where they can get in contact if we are not aware of them.

“It is just indie bands, bands that are probably not signed but which are quite professional. There is no real limitation on genre but I always try to get bands together that complement each other. The next ones in July are quite rock themed. It is generally slightly themed depending on what is available. And there has been a huge take-up. I have got them booked until the end of the year apart from a few bands I need to fill in for October.

“It is not just Horsham bands. For these shows we try to get as many Horsham bands as possible, but it would be quite limiting if we said only Horsham, so it is basically West Sussex really and also into East Sussex and Brighton a bit.

“We managed to get a night in in March last year before lockdown and that was the last one before June this year. It was fantastic to get back. It was pretty much full apart from maybe one or two empty seats, and the atmosphere was absolutely perfect. There was definitely an appetite for it.

“Everybody was really into it. They just couldn’t dance around as they probably would have wanted to. But it all felt safe. It was masks if you were moving around and it was table service, and for July 1 it will be just the same. The guidelines will be as they were. They haven’t gone backwards.”

As for the bands: “Lithium (from Crawley) are a bit of a mixture of originals and covers, but I think they will probably focus on their own material for this one. They are quite hard rocking, slightly grungy. Voodoo Lake are very much a Horsham band. They are definitely more the classic rock spectrum. They are a three-piece, like a power trio. Common Buzzards are a lot harder to describe. They are kind of alternate rock. They are a four-piece but they have got a new singer so they may have gone in another different direction. They have done Horsham Battle of the Bands before.”

Jamie is sure they will all come to it with plenty of enthusiasm: “It has been incredibly hard for musicians especially for bands who rely on that camaraderie of being in a band.”

In the meantime, Horsham Rocks has now started up again its weekly bandstand gigs in Horsham market.