Tickets- Official Box Office

ABOVE & BEYOND are set to perform LIVE at The Bluestone May, 17th 2015! 

CONNECTION. If one word sums up the phenomenon of Above & Beyond then that is surely it. Whether it’s the thousands of A&B fans singing their lyrics back at them at gigs from Beirut to Brixton, or the millions that tune in for their weekly Group Therapy radio show, connection – real human connection – is at the heart of all things that define Above & Beyond.

Much like acts like The Smiths or Joy Division before them, Above & Beyond find themselves embedded at the heart of their fans’ lives. Some walk down the wedding aisle to their songs, others ink their bodies with their lyrics, often a proud couple will choose to get engaged at one of their gigs. All that pledge their loyalty to them are moved in a way that goes beyond most electronic music out there.

Above & Beyond is Jono Grant, Tony McGuinness and Paavo Siljamaki and their story is one of constant movement. From their early days as hotly tipped producers to their current global standing, Jono, Tony and Paavo have remained as down-to-earth and determined as ever – always focused on the next goal. Over their 13-year history, this dedication has continually paid off.

The only dance act in history to win Essential Mix Of The Year twice (in 2004 and 2011), the London-based trio have remixed greats like Radiohead and Madonna, played to one million people on Barra Beach in Rio de Janeiro (New Year’s Eve in 2007) and even had their track “Buzz” chosen to soundtrack the launch of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo in the Mojave desert. And as these landmarks rack up the non-stop pulse of their global touring keeps them connected to their growing international fanbase. Each week brings another crowd, another country and often another continent, while their weekly Group Therapy radio show now reaches over 30 million people worldwide.

A band first and foremost, Above & Beyond are songwriters as much as they are DJs and their second album “Group Therapy” has taken their sound to new heights. The follow-up to 2006’s widely acclaimed debut “Tri-State”, the album draws on musical reference points as diverse as French cosmic pop heroes Air, American singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley and soundtrack master Hans Zimmer. “We are always looking to explore new territory but try to operate in our own way rather than just trying to follow trends,” explains Jono. The combined result on “Group Therapy” was unmistakably Above & Beyond – a cohesive album that was described by Mixmag as “the artist album of the year”.

At the heart of the album’s allure, of course, were songs of loves lost, confused and found. “Songs have an impact which is quite unparalleled in art,” believes Tony. “Poetry can be powerful, great literature is another great informer and educator, but few of us can remember any significant words from the great books or poems we read. But something amazing happens when you put words to music.”

Featuring two BBC Radio 1 playlisted singles (“Sun & Moon” and “Thing Called Love”) and a Sirius BPM Chart #1, the album’s many songs have connected in a way that so few dance tracks – vocal or otherwise – ever manage. “Since releasing our Group Therapy Album in 2011, it’s brought us even closer to our audience around the world,” explains Paavo. “The one thing I didn’t expect to happen on the scale it has, is how people from around the world have shared their stories with us as they go through amazingly positive or incredibly difficult times in their lives. It’s really touched us all and feels like a driving force for new creativity.”

Since the release of Group Therapy, the intense atmosphere at Above & Beyond’s increasingly ambitious live performances has redrawn the parameters of the DJ set. While so many superstar DJs place themselves at the centre of the show, Above & Beyond’s focus is always on getting closer to their crowd and making them part of the action. Whether that is by bringing fans up on stage to press the play button on their CDJs or communicating with the fans via their visual screens, the effect is to make everyone in the room feel like they are part of an experience that is at once epic, immersive and interactive.

“Some time ago we realised that on the best nights we have it’s always a three way thing: us, the music and the people, and we see improving the communication between all three as helping a good party turn incredible“ explains Paavo. “The soundsystem, lights and visuals are all there to help people connect to the music, with each other and with us, better. A Group Therapy experience, ideally, is positive, uniting and life-affirming for all involved.”

Having celebrated TATW milestones in Moscow, Miami and Beirut, 2012 saw Above & Beyond call time on Trance Around The World, as they launched their new radio show Group Therapy at a spectacular live broadcast event at Jayamahal Palace in Bangalore, India. Evolving from the foundation built by TATW, Group Therapy is broadcast weekly to 30 million people worldwide, and features guest mixes from the biggest names in electronic music. This year Above & Beyond celebrate the 50th instalment of Group Therapy Radio with their biggest ever UK show at the historic home of broadcasting, Alexandra Palace.

In the summer of 2013 Jono, Tony & Paavo launched another bold musical project, Above & Beyond Acoustic. Rewriting a selection of their back catalogue for a 15 piece ensemble, complete with a full string section, a harp and even a broom, they sold out three intimate shows at the impressive Porchester Hall in London, and in October 2013 will bring Above & Beyond Acoustic to Los Angeles.

Throughout this process, Above & Beyond have continued to release forward-thinking instrumental club music – such as their own tech-fused rollercoaster “Walter White” – on their renowned Anjunabeats label. An essential part of their story, the label is now in its 13th year and has helped to nurture artists like the London-based innovator Mat Zo, the eclectic genius Andrew Bayer and Russian star Arty. Independently spirited but run with ambitious vision, the label has grown like a family.“Dance music tends to be very short term, but we aim to release records that will leave a lasting impression on people and are listened to in years to come” explains Jono. “We try to operate in our own way rather than trying to follow trends.”

Like just about everything they turn their attentions to, it is a labour of love as well as a collaboration of the trio’s energies. De La Soul weren’t wrong. Three really is the magic number: and in Above & Beyond’s case the magic is spreading faster than ever before.

www.aboveandbeyond.nu/
https://soundcloud.com/aboveandbeyond

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Drake White and The Big Fire will be performing live at The Bluestone on Friday, May 5th, 2017

Featured Artist: Drake White

Opening Artist: Dave Kennedy

Opening Artist: Channing Wilson

Doors for the show will open at 7pm

PURCHASE HERE–This Show is SOLD OUT

Drake White Tickets on sale Friday, December 16th at 10am

VIP OPPORTUNITY AVAILABLE

VIP TABLE PURCHASE DOES NOT INCLUDE ADMISSION TICKETS TO THE SHOW.  

Admission tickets must be purchased separately.

• Loft Lower Tier: $250 (seats four people-no exceptions)
• Prime view of the stage!
• Includes first bucket of Miller or Coors Light
• VIP Server
• Exclusive Private Bar access

• Loft Upper Tier: $200 (seats four people-no exceptions)
• Includes first bucket of Miller or Coors Light
• VIP Server
• Private Bar Access
• May have an obstructed view
• *All VIP tables located in the loft area

*All Sales are final

Every reaction begins with a catalyst, some initial event that sets things on their inexorable course. For Drake White, it goes back to something raw and elemental in his debut album Spark.

“I learned how to play guitar and keep people’s attention around a fire,” explains the Hokes Bluff, Alabama native. “A spark can start a fire that can keep you alive and sustain you. So this is the beginning for me. This is the first strike of the flint.”

The spirit of Spark comes from those simple, early days spent enjoying the outdoors among friends in the warm glow of a fire. And though he’s now a city dweller with all the complications and distractions that entails, White still seeks the freedom and deeper connections he felt when the chorus of nature and the strums of his guitar blended into one harmonious song — the kind of contentment he sings about in the swirling majesty of his single “Livin’ the Dream.” Drake White

“We grew up free. We grew up on 4-wheelers, riding through the backwoods,” he says. “We grew up hunting and fishing and being out in the Appalachian Mountains. People don’t understand how beautiful north Alabama is until you see it in person.”

Drake White

Save for “Livin’ the Dream,” White wrote or co-wrote the remaining 11 tracks on Spark, working with red-hot producers Ross Copperman and Jeremy Stover through the process. He also brought in his own band for a handful of tracks to capture the energy of his live shows.

The first sound on Spark — before the pulse-quickening “Heartbeat” kicks into gear — is the voice of White’s late grandfather speaking from the pulpit. Several of these ghostly transmissions from the past appear on Spark, all extolling the virtues of love, brotherhood and nature. It’s a touch of the surreal that nods at White’s fondness for Pink Floyd’s psychedelic masterpiece The Wall, but also a deeply personal gesture that matches his vision perfectly.

“I went through about five or six sermons of my grandfather and picked out certain little snippets,” he says. “I just think they kind of fit. They’re weird and people are asking what they are. And that was my point: to get people talking about it.”

White has his own message of finding some harmony amid the demands of modern life, one that goes down easy in the uplifting, Zac Brown Band-assisted Southern rock anthem “Back to Free” and the cautionary-but soulful “I Need Real.” It’s a simple message of not letting oneself be swallowed up by technology and seeking out honest, genuine connections with others.

“When I’m at home, my wife and I keep our phones in the bedroom,” says White. “We listen to records. We hardly turn the TV on, unless it’s time for Game of Thrones. Before social networking was a smartphone app, we did it around a fire. That goes way back.”

With his gospel-derived, passionate delivery, White seems to have inherited his grandfather’s ability to touch crowds with a sermon — his divine vocal improvisations at the end of the honky-tonk flavored “Story” will undoubtedly get butts out of seats. White stresses that he isn’t a preacher, but doesn’t see a problem with putting his own methods for surviving the world out there.

“Some of the best songs, like Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” or anything by Bob Marley, have a little bit of preachin’,” he says. “I never want to come across too preachy, but instead I’m saying, ‘Hey man, this is my life, and this is what I do to be happy and I’m figuring it out just like you.’” Drake White

Spark covers an entire spectrum of emotions beyond these statements of character and self-definition. In “Making Me Look Good Again,” White cruises on an R&B-style groove to express his gratitude for his better half, while “Waiting on the Whiskey to Work” finds him embodying a man spun out on love and heartbreak. Then in the tropically-themed “Equator,” he flies south to give his nomadic side a little time to play.

“This record is about balance. It’s me asking, where’s that boy I used to be? Oh yeah, we gotta go get him back,” he says. “We gotta go on a hike or camping or grab my wife and go to some foreign country. I gotta feel alive. I gotta go out there and do that.” Drake White

Long a respected live entertainer with his (appropriately named) band the Big Fire, White’s climb to the limelight hasn’t been a straight or uncomplicated one. Rather than blowing up right away with a big debut single, he’s toiled on the road for years, giving jaw-dropping performances night after night and making believers one show at a time. “There are many different paths.

Country Music’s Rising Star,

Tony Jackson will be performing LIVE at The Bluestone on Friday, June 23rd

Doors for the show will open at 7pm

Opening Artist: Wyatt McCubbin

Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 day of show

Tickets will go on-sale Friday, April 21st at 10am

PURCHASE HERE

RESERVED LOFT TABLE SEATING

RESERVED TABLE PURCHASE DOES NOT INCLUDE ADMISSION TICKETS TO THE SHOW.  

Admission tickets must be purchased separately.

• Loft Lower Tier: $250 (seats four people-no exceptions)
• Prime view of stage!
• Includes first bucket of Miller or Coors Light
• Server
• Exclusive Private Bar access

• Loft Upper Tier: $200 (seats four people-no exceptions)
• Includes first bucket of Miller or Coors Light
•  Server
• Private Bar Access
• May be Obstruction in View

*All Reserved tables located in the loft area

ALL SALES ARE FINAL

    Is it premature to see Hall of Fame material in a guy who’s just releasing his first album?

 Not if that guy is Tony Jackson. To put it plainly, Jackson is one of the most gifted singers ever to grace country music. His video “The Grand Tour” ignited an unprecedented 10 million Facebook views and 200,000 shares in just over 3 short weeks!

The respect Jackson has already earned within the music community is evident throughout Tony Jackson, as the new album is titled.  It features songs and/or performances by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members John Sebastian, Steve Cropper and Dr. John “Mac” Rebennack, Country Music Hall of Famers Vince Gill, Bill Anderson and Conway Twitty and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame luminary Norro Wilson.

But it is ease with which Jackson makes every song—even the familiar ones—distinctly his own that sets him apart.  Who else would dare to try and then succeed in bringing a fresh layer of emotional urgency to such a classic as George Jones’ “The Grand Tour” or Conway Twitty’s eternal “It’s Only Make Believe”?

On the first-time and lesser known songs, Jackson mints his own classics.  With its sweeping steel guitar flourishes and ambient barroom clatter, he transforms John Sebastian and Phil Galdston’s “Last Call” into the sweetest, most affectionate separation ballad imaginable.  With reverence and a twinkle in his eye, he enlists Sebastian and Vince Gill in revivifying (after 50 years) the Lovin’ Spoonful’s 1966 romp, “Nashville Cats.”  “When asked if we should recut the song,” Sebastian begins, “I said absolutely but we have to get Vince Gill, Paul Franklin and today’s real Nashville Cats in on the session and fortunately it was preserved on video,” he beams.

After capturing perfectly, the excitement of new love in Bill Anderson’s “I Didn’t Wake Up This Morning,” he moves on to a memory-stirring homage to Merle Haggard, Hank Williams Jr. and Willie Nelson in “They Lived It Up,” a lyrical scrapbook from Anderson and Bobby Tomberlin.

 Jackson shines as a keen-eyed songwriter in his own right with such memorable excursions as “Drink By Drink,” “Old Porch Swing” and “She’s Taking Me Home.”

 From start to finish, Tony Jackson stands out as a “discovery” album, the kind you listen to with such delight that you have to recommend it to friends.  And hundreds of thousands have done just that.

 Jackson is currently a headliner on the Old Dominion Barn Dance in Richmond, Virginia, and is almost certainly the only major bank executive ever to abandon a prominent IT job in finance at a Fortune 500 company to embark on a career in country music.  But he didn’t grow up a country fan.

The son of a Navy man, he led a base-to-base existence, at one point living with his family in Rota, Spain for three years.  His early musical background was sketchy at best.  “I sang ‘White Christmas’ in the Christmas play in the sixth grade,” he recalls.  ‘Everybody seemed to love it, but I was a wreck. My mother forced me to sing in the church choir, but I was kind of buried in the voices along with everybody else.”  This was basically his entire musical resume until ten or so years ago when a friend whose band had lost its lead singer asked Jackson to try out for the spot.  “I did,” he says, “and I was hooked after that.”

 Two weeks after graduating from high school, Jackson joined the Marines.  “I told my dad I was joining because I was sick of taking orders,” he says with a wry grin.  There was as much getting-ahead as gung-ho in Jackson’s enlistment.  “I was a computer and electronics geek as a teenager,” he says.  “When I talked to the recruiter, he told me the Marine Corps had just started a computer science school in Quantico, Virginia.  Fortunately, I scored high enough on the entrance exam to go to that school.” It was a smart move.  When he finished service, a prominent bank in Richmond snapped him up to work in its Information Technology division, initially assigning him the lowly chore of re-setting passwords.  “I was way overqualified,” he says, “so I got promoted fast.  I was a senior vice president by my early 30s.”

 It was while in the Marines that he first started paying serious attention to country music.      “My mother listened only to gospel,” he says.  “My dad was into jazz, hip hop, R&B, new jack swing—stuff like that.  But Armed Forces Radio played everything.  When I was living in Spain—when I was 10 to 13—Randy Travis came over there on a USO tour.  Some friends and I were out there early when they were setting up the stage, and we actually got to talk to him before we realized he was the guy who’d be performing later.  He was really cool to us. In the Marine Corps, when my friends and I played music for each other, we were all homesick.   So when you’d listen to these country songs that talked about family and home and heartbreak, it would really grab you.”