Our Thanks giving for Johnny

What a wonderful evening of song celebrating a wonderful bloke of song!  

All involved in our November Thanks Giving gig raising funds for The Donor Family Network to celebrate the forty (and counting!) years of extra freedom and life it has given a very special member of our group, one Johnny Mayell, basso profundo extraordinario.

Well over £400 was raised on the night from just the lapel pins and collection bucket and more to come from the tickets.

Thanks to Corinium Community Choir for being such fun and we all enjoyed singing with them immensely.

Help us sell out the Sundial as Thanks Giving for 40 years of Johnny

Hello!  It's been a while... things have been outwardly quiet on the Magnificent front but that is about to change as we crank back into action at one of our most regular haunts... The Sundial Theatre in Cirencester.

This concert will raise funds for the Donor Family Network, a charity which supports families who have lost a loved one who has donated organs for transplant, and at the same time raising awareness of organ donation and the NHS Organ Donation Register.

And we have much to thank this amazing organisation for, in the shape of the small but (otherwise reasonably) perfectly formed Mr Johnny Mayell, has been one of our brothers in song these many years at BlokeFest and The Magnificent AK47.  He in turn is indebted to one such family who made it possible for him to undergo a successful kidney transplant in 1979.  Forty years later Johnny and the kidney are still going strong!

We have already sold out the venue and they have put more tickets on sale so please try to come along to what should be an emotional and memorable concert, help us sell it out for a second time (!) and raise lots of money for a great cause.

Tickets are available from www.ticketsorce.co.uk/sundial

If you can’t, but would like to make a donation to the Donor Family Network, Johnny has set up a Justgiving page at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/john-mayell.

Sun. Sea. And Singing. At LymeFest 2019

Another rather Magnificent weekend down on the South Coast at the LymeFolk Festival - casting long, black shadows and nearly spelling something!

Thanks to all who came and saw us and said such nice things about our performances.

More photos and info can be found at https://www.facebook.com/lymefolk/ and https://www.lymefolk.com.

Sea-side singing ahoy!

Fair warning to all the fair folk of Lyme Regis, that this day they will be invaded by the Be-blackened Singing Hordes from the North (North North Wiltshire branch) of Those Magnificent Singing Blokes from Ashton Keynes.

Quite a line up to enjoy!  Should be a cracker.

Full details at https://www.lymefolk.com/.

The Costwold Distillery incident

It's fair to say that we had rather a pleasant time at our first trip to Cotswold Distillery and their festival... flags were fluttering, we lumbered around the place, blackening the scene with our outfits and purveying quality BlokeSong at every opportunity and location, without the aid of amplification.

All good fun indeed, topped off by a decent spot of nosh and a darn good sing-song in a pub not too far away and more or less on the way home.

And the "incident"...?  We'll draw a veil on that for now until it is lost in the myths of time...

The Magnificent AK47 in another distillery...?

A rather wonderful line up including The Magnificent AK47 popping up around the place and propping up the bar.

The Magnificent AK47 ...? In a Distillery...? With our reputation...? Should be a Grand Day out for all.

Hope to see you there.

Full details at https://www.cotswoldsdistillery.com/blogs/news/the-cotswolds-distillery-festival

Rattlebone Postponed

Sadly despite it being a lovely late Spring day today the anticipation is that it is going to proverbially rain cats and dogs and possible frogs tomorrow so as the gig was due to be conducted largely in the Open Air the decision has been taken to cancel our scheduled performance due to or owing to the bad weather forecast*.

Sorry about that.

* any grammarians care to enter into a convoluted debate about the good/ungood aspects of the previous sentences will be encouraged to fill the time we would have otherwise spent singing...

Returning to Rattlebone

They say "never, go back, never seek to repeat your previous glories", well we ask, "what to 'they' know?"!

It's a cracking good pub, we had a lovely time when we first performed there, they clearly enjoyed us because they've asked back (and they didn't have to!), it's not too far away, and they serve quality food and ales...

What's not to like?

Even the weather might have perked up by the time we get there to lower the tone - https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/gcnmtd84t#?nearestTo=Sherston&date=2019-06-07.

High jinks and low notes

They're at it again... The Magnificent AK47, singing in alehouses across Pewsey?  In aid of raising funds for a well known local charity?  

With their reputation...? 

Whatever next?  

A darn good night out for one and all in aid of a good cause by the sound of it...

Top night in AK topping £1,000 raised

A Big thank you to everyone who made our return to the Ashton Keynes Village Hall such a HUGE success with well over £1,000 raised towards the funds to repair the hall floor.

It was an emotional evening for many of us, not having sung in front of a paying audience in the hall for more years than we can remember, but the blokes sounded on top form, in part because of the inspiring performance given by our fellow Ashton Keynes singers, the lovely ladies from Siren Sisters.

And what troopers they are!  They were missing one of their regular members and then on the day one of their key ladies was too poorly to perform, but the remaining Sirens still managed to pull out a superb set of close harmony and vibrant vocals, ably assisted by Heather Milnes on piano and with a guest slot from Caroline Harper singing a spine-tingling version of Skyfall.

The hall was rammed, the bar was busy and the "Afters" Pub Singing was one of the best and longest for quite a while.

A final thanks to all who came along to support us and to the Village Hall Team who beavered away behind the scenes.

All in all a rather Magnificent evening.  

Village Hall Gig tonight SOLD OUT

Just to let anyone interested know that tonight's concert by The Magnificent AK47 & Siren Sisters in aid of the Village Hall Floor Repair fund is SOLD OUT.

If you are lucky enough to have a ticket, please note the performance is due to start around 8pm but the Doors (and bar!) will be open from 7:15pm onwards.

Also, fair warning that there may be some singing Afters in The White Hart following the show...

Selling out with Siren Sisters

We are very pleased to say that we have very, very nearly sold out the Ashton Keynes Village Hall Floor Fund Raising gig two days ahead of the event.

There are only a few tickets left online and will be operating a waitlist when they are gone in case any become available.

Here's to another great night celebrating our community with two top talents from the village.

See if you can still be one of the lucky ones by scooting over to http://www.themagnificentak47.com/tickets.html.

Sassparella tonight!

And a final reminder that we will be performing in that there Bath with the very delightful Sassparella in a return return match.   

We sang with them in this venue a couple of years ago and everyone enjoyed the event so much that they wanted to do it again in The Sundial (https://themagnificentak47.blogspot.com/2017/11/sparkling-sassparella-and-magnificent.html) and everyone enjoyed the event so much that they wanted to do it again again!  

So, we look forward to Saturday's event and what happens next.

Some tickets still available last we heard - enquire via https://sassparella.net/.

Gulls Ahoy!

We probably ought to mention the fact that we are in action again with the very lovely The Gulls from down Kernow way this coming weekend over in the very lovely Tetbury Goods Shed and then afterwards in the Bar of the very handily close Royal Oak http://theroyaloaktetbury.co.uk/ for a bit of "Afters".

We believe some tickets are still available via https://shed-arts.co.uk/event/the-magnificent-ak47-with-port-isaacs-gulls/ where it clearly states 'Back by Popular Demand the Magnificent AK 47' and follows up with 'Original, eclectic material, songs of life and love, often with hilarious laughter and just a touch of amateur dramatics guaranteed to put a smile on your face, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and leave you with tears of joy and empathy towards the rigours of being a new age man in the 21st Century.'  

Sounds rather good!

Hope to see you there.

Fabulous Lansdown

Stroud... fabulous, quirky place, full of choirs and singers.  Lansdown Hall... fabulous performance space in the heart of Stroud, full of audience.  What a fabulous evening in a fabulous space full of fabulous people!

We had a full house with a very appreciative audience for our second gig of the year, and a more than half decent performance from the blokes, even though we didn't say so ourselves because lots of people there said it for us.

All topped off by more than some half decent "Afters" and a particularly appreciated few jugs of ale from the landlady to appreciate our singing.

All in all, a fabulous night out for all.

Roll up to Lansdown!

A gentle reminder that we are back in action this coming Friday night in the lovely Lansdown Hall in that there People's Republic of Stroud, to serenade the locals with our tall tales of daring-do and metaphor-laden angst about so-called masculinity in the modern age.

Prepared to be moved to tears, hopefully for good reasons of mirth or melancholy and at the right moments, so please bring your own hankie and we look forward to providing you with much thought-provoking entertainment and rich, manly harmonies from across the border with North North Wiltshire.

Tickets can still be purchased from http://www.themagnificentak47.com/tickets.html but are of limited supply so don't leave it till too late to secure yours.

Didn't we have a loverly time, the day we went to Hullavington

A belated thank you to all who braved a pretty chilly night to get to Hullavington Village Hall, but inside there was a very warm reception for our motley band of scurvy dogs, even when we tried to squeeze in "off to the Hullavington Arms" into what normally only scans into two syllables!

The audience were a lovely lot and very appreciative and we were duly appreciative of their appreciation - big love in all round really.  Nice early start to the gigging year.

Hullava start to the year - a gig in Hullavington

It's an early start to the gigging season, but hopefully we can find a forgiving audience in the Village Hall of Hullavington in Northish Wiltshire, not so far away from our birthplace of Ashton Keynes, although many Magnificent AK47 aficionados could argue that Hullavington place a not insignificant role in the group's actual genesis...  It's a bit of a shaggy dog story, as the saying goes, but bear with us a moment or two, and we'll explain.

Legend has it that back in 2007 a villager from Ashton Keynes was attending the Sidmouth Folk Week and was persuaded by his wife to attend the "Best of the Festival" intro show whereupon they witnessed the sonic and visual marvel that is The Spooky Men's Chorale.  Once recovered from the initial impact, the pair ventured to the official "CD signing session" (remember CDs?) and struck up a conversation with a fellow who claimed to come from a place called Hullavington... other conversations ensued and lives were changed by what eventually morphed into The Magnificent AK47.

Anyway, not to distract you further, but more tales will be told at the actual show, so without further ado, here's a direct link to purchase your tickets for the event and we hope to see you there.

Click here to buy tickets
Sell tickets online with Ticket Tailor

A Magnificent 2018 in retrospective

It's that time of year when one looks back on the previous 12 months and ponders "that went a bit quick didn't it?  What did we get up to that made the time pass so fast?"  The answer is "a bloomin' lot of stuff"

Here is just a very brief re-cap of our Magnificent Tenth Year.  If you want the full gory details, then simply comb through our back issues over the course of this year.

January began with a bit of a jolt back into action with another Boot Camp ahead of recording of our third proper CD.  Both very long sessions that tested everyone's stamina to the limit but with ultimately a more than half decent recording captured for posterity.

We then proceeded to hone our art for the next couple of months before our gigging season started in earnest, although not without a slight false start with our scheduled show at the Prince Albert over Stroud way being postponed at the very last moment because of somewhat unseasonal snow.  The re-scheduled event was an absolute cracker with a totally rammed audience close enough to smell the waft of Fishermen's Friends on our breath as we tore the house down with our repertoire.  

Many other gigs were to follow as you can see from this year's range of stunning artwork  from our amazing ArtMeister (apart from the Wessex MVC gig), as well as an abstract homage to the thing we know as a "Bloke" based on an homage to the song of the same name especially written for us by the genius that is Roger Jackson - if you haven't heard it already, you are in for a treat when you do.

One of our many highlights was without doubt our second trip to Ireland and the wonderful City of Cork, host to their very own International Choral Festival.  Not for the first time, we ventured across the Irish Sea with a little trepidation only to be overwhelmed with the reception we received across the many bars, concert halls and even in the streets, and to be garlanded with another award for best embodying the spirit of the festival - so many great memories from such a short space of time...

And if going almost as far West as we could resulted in having a great experience, venturing to the Far East of Anglia was an equally amazing experience for similar, yet different, reasons.  Much singing, a fair amount of "refreshing", with WaGs & FoBaFoBs in tow, and many fantastic festival moments, like singing to the Chief Festival Organiser as we ambushed her on her way to the main stage we were to grace later that day, having our workshop interrupted by those who would become known as "The Interrupting Vikings" (see facebook posts for more), and much more.

We very much hope to return some day to do it all again...

And there were many other top moments throughout the year, doing two shows at the Upton-on-Severn Folk Festival with many other quality acts, producing our third CD with some yet more stunning artwork, and a return of BlokeFest to Wiltshire for yet another stupendous event.

We also had a busy year in various forms of media, from being front page news as one of those featured on the newly revamped Village Mag, to taking over the village shop window for two weeks to promote our Big Gig at St George's Bristol in aid of Prostate Cancer, having two of our chaps,  Geoff Spooner and Neil Burston, featured on BBC Radio Bristol to promote the gig near the end of their charity fundraising walk from Ashton Keynes to the gig, and a couple more videos released throughout the year that can be found on our Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/themagnificentak47.

To top celebrating our (first) 10 years of existence we held a typically Magnificent event with an awesome "Cheese and Ale Evening" with as many of our significant others that could be tempted by such as tantalising prospect of good food, good ale and a modicum of us singing... but we were supported by our friends in the leading ladies singing group in the village, Siren Sisters, as well as a fascinating display of memorabilia arrayed around the room.  A great birthday party for all.

And finally, we must make mention of all the utterly Magnificent Blokes who have been such great company and have worked so hard to become what they are... the best all-bloke, Georgian (singing) inspired choir ever to escape from North North Wiltshire.

Gentlemen, we salute you all.  Here's to many more adventures in the months and years to come, and our heartfelt thanks to all who make it possible, and to all those who allow us to do it.

Promo video for Men United

We have a nifty little video to help let people know about our Big Gig celebrating 10 years of Magnificentness and raising awareness and funds for Prostate Cancer UK at St George's Hall in Bristol on Saturday 6th October.

 

We hope you like it and just to emphasise the Workshop AND Show are open to ALL singers & audience of ALL types who enjoy singing in the lower registers.

For more details at http://themagnificentak47.com/ or go straight to https://www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk/event/men-united/.