Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra + True Strays

Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra don’t care what genre you
choose to put them in – Western Swing, Blues, Country, Rock & Roll
or whatever else– as long as you understand that they’re 100% sincere
and 100% immersed in this stuff. This is no lazy pastiche, no dressing
up box. They live and breathe this music and want you to get immersed
with them.

The Tea Pad are ten years into a remarkable story that began with
four friends studying at University and now sees them playing
venues and festivals across the UK and mainland Europe. Based in
Newcastle Upon Tyne but with members hailing from Orkney to
Warwickshire, the Tea Pad sound draws on myriad influences – from Hank
Williams to Django Reinhardt, Tom Waits to The Beatles – yet ultimately
sounds like nobody else, that North Eastern Swing style that’s utterly
their own and changing all the time.

Across their four studio albums – 2012’s “Money Isn’t Everything”,
2014’s “Talk About The Weather”, 2016’s “Something Blue” and 2019’s
“Soul Of My City” – the band have constantly added new flavours to their
sound: Heron in particular is a vinyl obsessive, always fired up about
some new passion – calypso or boogaloo or whatever this week brings –
and that eclecticism feeds into their songs, with the newest releases
adding twangy 60s guitar tones and modernist R&B styles.

The band tour the way bands should – widely and endlessly – winning
friends and fans at each new show with notable performances at festivals
like Glastonbury, Bestival, Wilderness and Cambridge Folk Festival.
They’ve appeared three times on Radio 4’s Loose Ends, and had their
music played by everyone from Marc Riley to Huey Morgan.

October 2022 will see the band release their fifth studio album, “The
Party’s Over”, which takes their signature blend of classic country and
rhythm and blues to a new level. After a decade of honing their craft,
this might be the best album to date!

Joining Rob Heron (vocals/guitar) is Tom Cronin
(mandolin/harmonica/guitar), Colin Nicholson (accordion/organ/piano) and
Ted Harbot (double bass/electric bass) and Paul Archibald (drums)

“That’s one hot band right there!” – Huey Morgan, BBC Radio 2

“Rob Heron evokes the spirit of Bob Wills and Django
Reinhardt with a quintet that shuffles and boogies with panache.
Infectiously good-humoured” – Uncut Magazine

“Amazing musicians who play with both passion and a sympathetic regard for the history of the genre.” – Maverick Magazine

+ special guests True Strays