AFTER what has felt like a never-ending eighteen-month hiatus, The Bluejays are delighted to be back on the road, touring their brand new show Rave On: The Rise of Rock and Roll, the band brings the hits from pop music’s golden eras to life.

Charting the meteoric rise of Rock and Roll, Rave On is a thrilling tour through music’s most revolutionary decades. The show features the greatest hits of the 1950s and 60s, from the likes of Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, The Beatles, Connie Francis, Eddie Cochran to Little Richard, Roy Orbison, Lulu, Cliff Richard and many more.

The Bluejays formed in 2012 when they began performing the greatest hits of the 1950s at weddings and private events. Over the next few years the band’s following grew rapidly and soon they were ready for an international stage. One particular highlight was being asked to play at Buddy Holly’s birthday celebration in Lubbock, Texas in front of Buddy’s family, his widow Maria Elena and guitar legend Duane Eddy, who described the band as “fantastic” and the “real deal”. In 2017, The Bluejays embarked on their first ever theatre tour, playing up and down the UK to thousands of fans until the pandemic hit in early 2020.

Show creators and The Bluejays band members Dan Graham and Oliver Seymour Marsh have spent the last year writing and refining this new show, as well as keeping fans entertained, filming weekly lockdown tracks. Shot during the middle of the pandemic at musicians’ homes, from Billericay, Essex to Eugene, Oregon The Bluejays’ isolation videos were a light in the darkness; a few of the videos getting over 50,000 views on YouTube.

Speaking about their brand new show Rave On, which dives into the 1960s as well as the 1950s, Oliver says: “We’ve had the chance to explore material we’ve not covered before and create a show which moves into an exciting new decade. We didn’t want to lose sight of the 1950s and of course, the story of rock and roll starts here, but we started to ask ourselves how could we explore the way the music travelled globally throughout the next decade? We stop around 1966 just before psychedelia turns up. Who knows, maybe that’ll be our next show.”

Dan adds: “We are so excited to be back onstage in front of a live audience again, we started up again in July and every show has been a joy! Every note of ‘Rave On’ is played live on stage with as much faith to the original recordings as we could find. We love these songs as much as the audiences do and hope to play a very small part in keeping them alive for new generations to discover!”

Rave On: The Rise of Rock and Roll is coming to King’s Hall, Ilkley on Sunday, September 25, 2022, 7.30pm. Tickets £26, Boxes (seat 4) £104, Call the Box Office on 01274 432000 or visit bradford-theatres.co.uk