Magnificent Men United

It’s hard to believe, but The Magnificent AK47, the singing blokes from Ashton Keynes and surrounding area, have been together for over a decade...

And now they would like to invite you to join them on Magnificent Mystery Tour to help them celebrate their (first) ten years with a MASSIVE workshop and Gala performance at the beautiful St George’s Hall, just off Park Street in Bristol.

The aim is to get as many singers together for a huge workshop in the afternoon where some of the most respected singing leaders in the West will be teaching songs to the assembled throng.

This will be followed by a Gala concert in the evening to include appearances by some leading choirs in Bristol and culminate in a performance by The Magnificent AK47 themselves, topped off by the workshop attendees singing the songs they learnt earlier in the day. You and your friends could be there in the audience or even one of the singers taking part on stage! 

More info on our main website at http://themagnificentak47.com/ or get your ticket now from the St George's Hall Box office at https://www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk/event/men-united/.

Brilliant Folk East - one week on

One week on and we are still struggling to return to our humdrum 21st Century lives after such a FAB-U-LUS weekend at Folk East 2018.

Favourite moments??  So, so many, but here is a selection in picture form and let us indulge in a little list:

1. Being able to get in and out of the site so easily
2. All the decorations around the site 
3. The lights in the woods
4. Serenading Poppy in the archway in the woods 
5. The Young'uns & Show of Hands
6. Really decent Beer at £3 a pint!
7. The Sutton Hoo replica longboat
8. Singing on the MAIN stage!
9. Singing round the site
10. The Sing Like a Bloke Workshop with "Invading Vikings"
11. The Thank You serenading of principal organiser Becky who invited us in the first place
12. The fantastic vibe from everyone

Any more?  Maybe later...

Folk East - Folking Brilliant

This highly apt sign was spotted at the rather wonderful Folk East Festival we had the honour of being invited to sing at and had the immense pleasure to attend.

Loads more moments and memories can be found on our Facebook and Twitter pages of another truly MAGNIFICENT weekend away.

Thanks to all who made it possible and to the WAFFs (Wives and Friends + Family) who joined us for such a grand craic.

600 up!

If you will indulge us briefly, we would like to take a moment to wallow in a little bit of nostalgia and reflect on how amazed we are that something that started out as a small piece of the InterWebSphere has grown into a monster archive of all things Magnificent!  

So, let us celebrate....

When flicking back through (the first) 600 posts it is hard to take in all the amazing mini Man-moments that we have had over our (first) 10 years of Magnificentness.  Who would have thought that a workshop at the 2008 Ashton Keynes Music Festival on a June Saturday would have resulted in so many, many hours of fun and camaraderie for so many blokes for so many years, and so many of those moments captured to share across the Internetsphere.

So, without further ado, here are some of our highlights, in no particular order or rhyme or reason other than they represent a small smattering of, er, representative moments we have had through the years.  

Starting with a random collection, in clockwise order from the top left, our first "Where were you when" post, our Belovéd ChoirMeister in the Grauniad musing about how hard it is to #getmensinging if they are not in The Magnificent AK47, one of our best April 1st Spoofs - The Magnificent AKtion Man, our first Wold Tour, our 2nd Hammerman Tour, our biggest gig so far at Colston Hall, recording our first "proper" recording, The Roundhouse Double-Date, and our first team photo in our first T-shirts.

Which can be found (in no discernible order) at 

http://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/2013/05/wold-tour-alert.html

http://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/2013/07/men-at-work.html

http://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/2013/06/why-dont-men-join-choirs.html

http://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/2011/08/where-were-you-when-wearing.html

http://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/2011/07/bemused-but-looking-great.html

http://themagnificentak47.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/your-very-own-magnificent-action-figure_866.html

https://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-hammerman-tour.html

https://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/2015/05/what-did-you-do-at-weekend-daddy.html

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Next up we have our some other landmarks on the Blog, 200 posts, 301, celebrating 100 posts in 2015 and the brilliant year that was 2017

https://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/2013/06/200-up.html

https://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/2014/11/301-up.html

https://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/2015/12/centenary-up-for-magnificent-year.html

https://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/2017/12/magnificent-2017.html

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Closely followed by a great feature that seems to have lapsed somewhat after being very prevalent on blog in earlier years, "Where were you when" - we might have to revive this...

Have a peruse through the many posts https://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/search/label/Where%20were%20you%20when

---

Now we come to our recordings.  Did you know we have THREE CDs worth of material?  Possibly an increasingly outdated unit of measure, but nonetheless a good yard stick for a group of our nature to say we've been around a bit and know a few songs and captured them for generations to come, as long as they have CD players... Brilliant artwork...

See http://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/2015/11/magnificent-monumental.html and 

https://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/search?q=gigantic and https://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20Taste%20of%20The%20Magnificent%20AK47

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And finally, our TOURs, a few days together, long enough to get to know each other  that little bit better, short enough to not be too long that we get sick of the site of each other and SUCH BRILLIANT FUN.

Who can forget our First Mini-Tour in Cornwall where the biggest complaint was that we were having too much fun/food and too good a time (!), our visit to #MagnificentDerry where we were so welcomed and had such a grand craic that we were awarded the "Audience Award", a title specially invented for us, and our second Tour to Cornwall where we dueted with Gulls and sung our own version of "Nothing like a dame" back to back completely unbeknownst to the other group, or our time in #MagnificentCork where we captured their hearts as the spirit of the Festival and won yet another award????

https://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/2015/04/safely-gnome.html

https://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/search/label/Cornwall%20Mini-tour

https://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/search/label/%23MagnificentDerry

https://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/search/label/%23MagnificentCork

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#MagnificentTimes

A final thought, thank to CeeJay for setting it up in the first place and to the Magnificent Mysterious BlogMeister for maintaining this with such ludicrous dedication.

Folk East Show time confirmed

We have had a confirmed show time for our appearance on the main stage at Folk East for Saturday at 15:40 (ish) so if you are going to be there we would love to see you then then.

More info (but not timings) on all the other great acts and other festival features you can experience can be found at https://folkeast.co.uk/daily-line-up/.

Only a few more sleeps to go until what should be a great weekend for those who can attend (for those who can't, don't worry, it'll be rubbish and you won't regret not being there...).

"Go Wes"...no, sorry... "Go East!"

Only Five more sleeps to go for some of us before we descend en masse in our be-blacked presence to what has been described as "One of the best world music, roots and folk festivals in the UK" in the far flung fields of Suffolk as we head very much in an easterly direction to Folk East.

As you can see we will be operating in some very hallowed company with some of the top flight acts on the UK (and world) folk scene so we are highly honoured to have some how wangled an invite.

Maybe it is something to do with the late night singing that certain members of our esteemed entourage partook with members of The Young'uns, who are patrons of the event, late night at the wonderful (while it lasted) Convent, maybe it is something to do with us being an unusual take on mvc, maybe it is something to do with our capacity to draw an audience by press ganging them at the bar, only time will tell.

STEAM - top night

A (marginally) belated thank you to everyone who came along to see us in collaboration with the wonderful Wessex Male Voice at our recent joint show at STEAM in the heart of Swindon's Heritage Quarter.

Some great moments, from Wessex's spine tingling 'Io resto qui: Addio!' to us getting our usual reaction when people "get the gag" and in particular the singing along to Delilah, and the two joint numbers that went so very well considering they were barely run through at the soundcheck.

The Men of Wessex were a delight to perform with and very appreciative collaborators - an excellent union of the powerhouses of male voiced choral singing in this part of the world.

Thanks to all who worked so hard over so many months to make it all come together, in particular Stuart Allinson of Wessex Male Voice, ably supported by his organising team.