| ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT |  |
Johno's Blues Bar REVISITED
Phil Emmanuel, Johno Johnson and Will Kepa at the old Johno's Blues Bar.
The infamous Johno’s Blues Bar is set to be reincarnated, even if only for three nights, Friday 30th of April to Sunday 2nd May 2010. After near on twenty years as the ‘Best ‘Lil Blues Club’ in Australia Johno’s Blues Bar closed down three years ago with the last hurrah for the venue being on Sunday the tenth of May 2007.
Local entertainer and live music fanatic Terry Doyle has come to an arrangement with the former owner Ric Montgomery and with the inner Cairns city venue, The Vibe Bar, to put on John Blues Bar Revisited during the second annual Cairns Blues Festival. "I thought it'd be a good idea to complement the blues festival with a blues gig that welcomes the punters to Cairns on the Friday, and starts after the festival finishes on the Saturday and Sunday nights" said Doyle.
“In all cities across the world that have big music festivals you have venues putting on ‘side shows’, wouldn’t be great in the years to come that our beautiful city had live blues on every street corner and I every nook and cranny spread over a whole week of the Cairns Blues Festival, that would surely bring a few visitors to town.”
Friday night the 30th April will feature a reunion of the Doyle Blues Band with Jake Doyle returning to Cairns for the week after eighteen months away in Melbourne and in America plus John’s Blues Band featuring the last standing members of the popular lineup Johno Johnson, Ric Montgomery, Bruce McKenzie and Dan Solawiej.
Saturday 1st May will once again feature Johno’s Blues Band, The Doyles and some surprises.
On Sunday night the 2nd of May will feature ‘The World Famous Gong Show’ which ran every Sunday for near on twenty five years in Cairns with such diverse venues as The Criterion Hotel, The Oceanic Hotel, The Australia Hotel, the Pacific Hotel and three Johno’s Blues Bar locations throughout the city. Johno’s Blues Band, The Doyle’s and others will perform also.
The reunion is sure to serve up some great memories of the world famous live music venue and rekindle the joy it brought to so many local live music fans as well as the countless interstate and international visitors, who, over the years embraced the irrepressible Johno’s Blues Bar.
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