Flashback

Biography

Flashback have been a household name on the York music scene for over 20 years. Guitarist/ lead vocalist, Pete Willo, who has fronted the band in its various guises, says their current line up, providing a hard hitting portrayal of the early sixties Beat Groups, has never been so much in demand, playing several times a week at venues throughout Yorkshire. Along with Kev Benson on bass/lead vocals and Phil Calvert on drums, the trio has a hundred years playing experience between them.

Impressed by Beatle tribute bands at the world famous Matthew Street music festival in Liverpool, they realised that they all had a passionate interest in the music of the early sixties Hamburg Beat Group Scene and subsequent world-wide Merseybeat boom.

Using instruments and amplification of the fifties and sixties, including period microphones and a full size backdrop of the stage wall of the Cavern, they set out to try to recreate the sights and sounds of those halcyon days. Their repertoire ranges from the raw R&B of Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Elvis, through to early Beatles rockers, including some of the songs that made them famous. Also represented are the likes of Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J Kramer, The Hollies, Rolling Stones and even The Kinks, all of which is combined with a great deal of light-hearted banter to create a "stompin' night out", as they used to say! 

With the re-emergence of guitar-driven bands on the current music scene, their audience is just as likely to be made up of students and "twenty-somethings", as it is old rockers who experienced the sixties the first time round.

Flashback were recently spotted by members of sixties band The Applejacks, who invited them to support some of the legendary groups such as The Merseybeats and Searchers, that are still touring, and in December they appeared at Liverpool's legendary Cavern club - the ideal setting for their brand of Rock!

 If you want to hear what everyone was raving about in 1962, come along and sample the music of that period at its raw, earthy best - and not a backing tape in sight!