Welcome to the Jarrelook

An announcement from the band

dated 9th JUNE, 2007...

Lately we have had a lot of queries (and some criticism!!!) asking when we are going to be playing again. We don't wish to dissapoint anyone however we feel it is neccesary now to let you all know what has been going on with the band.

The bad news is that at the moment there are still no plans to play in the immediate future. We did commence looking at venues for some time last year and into the early part of this year but due to the monopoly exercised by certain companies it has proved very difficult indeed to find anywhere that will talk sense. As you probably know we do not make very much in the way of money from any of our gigs due to the very large staging costs for pyrotechnics, lasers etc. and now we are forced into a situation where we would struggle to break even let alone put a few bob in our pockets towards the eventual replacement of the gear we do have. So regrettably we will be taking an extended sabbatical from playing until we can find some favourable venues or some slightly less avaricious promoters who do not seek to stage shows only to fill their pockets.

We apologise for any dissapointment this may have caused.

A further problem arose after a promoter contacted us with a view to us headlining a very big outdoor charity show in aid of regenerating a school in Sri Lanka devastated by the tsunami. We actually got as far with the planning process as travelling to Stansted where it was to be staged in order to have on-sight meetings with the pyrotechnic company Le Maitre, local Health & Safety and with the site management. At this point we had to make a decision whether we would chose to play the "biggie" or push on with the plans for indoor shows as it was not physically possible to commit to both productions - the work load to do so would have been phenomenal and way beyond two ordinary people trying to hold down full time jobs as well as play in a band. The logistics and site planning were already in the advanced stage, the support bands were with us and we had got to the point of working with Florian at Absee Laser in Germany on images and sequences for some seriously BIG laser displays, and Tim at Le Maitre for a host of custom pyrotechnics. We had even got as far as arranging all neccesary flight path clearances for pyro and lasers with Air Traffic Control at Stansted airport .

And then the promoter announced to us that he couldn't get permission to use the site after all and effectively the show was finished before it had even started. And by then there wasn't enough time left to get the venues booked for the proposed indoor shows because he had wasted so much of our time on his project. And naturally such a huge dissapointment knocked us off our feet in terms of our enthusiams for playing future concerts of any kind.

So... there it is, that's the reason why we haven't played in a while. It's all down to avaricious venues and promotion companies and not least to a time waster who we have subsequently had to drag through the courts in order to get our out of pocket expenses refunded. That's not to mention the harm he has done to our reputation with the likes of Absee Laser and Le Maitre, and all the other people's time he has so selfishly wasted.

Last of all he has caused us to dissapoint the people who matter the most - you.

So what about the future?

Well... we are not saying never again, what we are saying is not just now. Thanks for all your support over the years we have been playing.

Please keep an occasional eye on this page for anymore news...

IMPORTANT NOTE: Some people have changed their email service provider or their email address since we last made a mailing and as a result we have had several emails returned to us as undeliverable. If you still wish to receive info please make sure that we have your up to date email address details.

***** PAST NEWS *****

Jarrelook last played their show for the benefit of a charity back in April 2002 and the profits of £489.15  were donated as promised beforehand to The British Heart Foundation. Sadly our main sponsor, the Rossendale coach company Ellen Smith, failed to pay their promised donation and we had to make good the projected profits cheque from our own pocket. Needless to say it does not best please us paying out our own money for the pleasure of performing so our deepest thanks (NOT!!!) go to this company for breaking their promise. It is especially disgusting in view of the fact that Ellen Smith let us down in the first place when Tracy booked a coach to take pupils from her music school Arietta Music to see us play at Preston and the coach failed to turn up. It was only after she took them to task on this that they pledged money for the charity show by way of a good will gesture... some goodwill.

We would like to thank all of you who supported us (and thereby the charity) on the night. We would also like to dedicate the concert to the memory of Mr. Brian Lister and Mr. Colin Rowley, who were very dear friends of members of the band. Sadly they both passed away shortly before the show. Both familys expressed their desire for donations to be made to this particular charity so we are happy to have been instrumental in making it happen.

We would like to take thank you all for asking us (so forcefully!!!) to play "Revolution, Revolutions" for a second time at the end of the charity show, it was a real pleasure for us to play a true encore in that way, especially a number we enjoy performing so much.