Bernie Torme
Friday 23rd October 2015
Doors Open 7.30pm | Tickets £15.00 each | Overnight Package £52.50 per person
Support from Rusty G's and Huxtable
Ticket Only | Ticket and Room Package
Accommodation Packages
Stay in the South Beach Hotel with Bernie (you know what we mean!) with our great Room and Ticket deal - we have a limited number of packages with overnight accommodation in a twin, double or single room inclusive of guaranteed ticket.
- Twin/Double with Bed and Breakfast and Ticket: Only £75 per person
- Room for Single Occupancy with Bed and Breakfast and Ticket : £115 per person
There is strictly limited availability on these packages and they are ONLY available online and NOT from the hotel
Bernie Torme
When I think of Bernie Torme it just brings flashbacks of the heady days of The Ayr Pavilion when bands like Def Leppard and Iron Maiden entertained us sweaty Ayrshire schoolboys and girls. And my first gig was seeing Gillan with the magnificent Bernie Torme on the strings!
Bernie Torme has confirmed that he will be returning to play South Beach Sessions again in 2015 with another new album release planned later this year as part of his Blackheart Tour
Torme blew the place apart on his last visit in November 2014 and the return will undoubtedly mean a compete sell out again.
I first saw Bernie Torme strutting his stuff at my first ever live gig - Gillan at The Pavilion in Ayr on the Round the World in Eighty tour so we are delighted to be having him back in Ayrshire once again playing South Beach Sessions on Friday October 23rd.
The Irish icon – known for his time with Ozzy Osbourne, Ian Gillan and others – returned to his roots with a 2014 double-disc set, “I wanted to do an album because it’s been so fucking long since the last one. Admittedly there were three Guy McCoy Torme records in between, but even the last of those was a while ago.
He continues: “It’s very guitar-based and blues-rock oriented, with more than a smidgin of psychedelia." We await details of the 2015 release with great expectations.
BIOGRAPHY
Tormé was influenced by Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Rory Gallagher and Gary Moore of Thin Lizzy and formed his own band at a young age. His first paid performance came when Don Harris, a 14 year old drummer he played alongside when he was 17, secured a gig at the local Girl Guides' dance in Kilmainham in Dublin.[1] Tormé then played in Dublin band 'The Urge' in the early 1970s before relocating to London in 1974, where he initially played with heavy rockers 'Scrapyard' (whose bass player, John McCoy would later be re-united with Tormé in Gillan), before forming the punk 'Bernie Tormé Band' in 1976. The Bernie Tormé Band toured with The Boomtown Rats and Generation X among many others. Tormé has since revealed that he secured the supporting band slot with the Boomtown Rats by agreeing to go around London putting up posters advertising the tour.
In 1977 the band were asked to contribute two tracks to the Live At The Vortex album, "Streetfighter" and "Living for Kicks". This led to them being signed to the Jet Records label, who "...paid us forty quid a week each for the next 18 months... Apart from that they just sat on us pretty much, they were more into ELO.
Frustrated by a lack of commercial success, Tormé accepted the invitation of former Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan in 1979 to join his band Gillan, and it was as part of this band that Tormé is perhaps best known.
Over the next four years the group enjoyed three Top Ten UK albums (Mr. Universe, Glory Road and Future Shock), in addition to extensive worldwide tours of Europe, Japan, and the United States. In 1981 Tormé left Gillan, and played as a live session man for Atomic Rooster and then Ozzy Osbourne as the immediate successor of the tragically deceased original guitarist Randy Rhoads.
Since 1982 Tormé has led his own band under various names and lineups (including a version of Torme with singer Phil Lewis, formerly of Girl and later with LA Guns). Tormé spent several years with the band Desperado with former Twisted Sister singer Dee Snider. Although the record saw limited release, Snider re-used a number of the songs for a subsequent project, Widowmaker (not to be confused with the 1970s English band of the same name).Tormé also played guitar on René Berg's solo album, The Leather, The Loneliness And Your Dark Eyes, released in 1992.
For the forthcoming tour he says,
“It’s back to the bands I really love: three-piece blues rock like Cream, Hendrix, Rory Gallagher and all that. High-energy rocking, low-energy and bluesy; what I grew up on – but the way I do it.”
