Back Row -  Mark - Richie

Front Row:-  Phill - Rachel - Charlie

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Originally formed in March 1996 as a duo Phill Morley guitar and vocals and Richard Lee; 5-string banjo. The name came up as a joke, when Phill saw a notice saying “WET PAINT” as he and Richard were entering a concert. Phill said “funny I didn’t know they were playing tonight!”, so that night he and Richard used it as a name for their own duo.

Over the years the duo grew incorporating a double bass, mandolin and fiddle. We then became a fully fledged bluegrass and barn dance band, playing for many charity functions, pubs, concerts, festivals parties, weddings and more........

If you want to recieve our free electronic newsletter ACORN NEWS published bi-monthly, please send your email address to phill@bluegrassuk.com saying you wish to subscribe. 

BREAKING NEWS

Well we got disqualified from the Grand Finals at the Park Resorts Talent Contest held at Highfields, Clacton, Essex. There seem to be some confusion of our rehearsal times. On the Wednesday we did our rehersals at 9:00 am and then in the evening we preformed with 8 other acts. Out of those 6 acts 3 would be chosen to go into the Grand Final Thursday evening. We were one of the three. So we were told that we would have to be at the rehersals from 4:30pm Thursday. One of us had to work and wouldn't be able to get away until 3:30pm. We said this and the member of staff said that he thought it wouldn't matter as long as most of the band were there. So Thursday afternoon we were now competing against 8 other acts in which 3 would win the Grand Finals - 1st 2nd & 3rd. Cut a very long story short, the coordinator said that we had 5 mins, I phoned our member, they said they would be there, I came in they set some mics up on stage, we were prepared start a sound check, the coodinator came up and said right thats it 5 mins up you are disqualified! And with in a minute or so of saying that our member arrived, and we even told them that but he was determined we weren't to go through!

On the Weds rehersals were were the last act on (same as on Thurs) and we were kept hanging around while they had to get a sound engineer in from another complex up the road. So we said this but they still argure that we had broken the rules as a member being late, although we were told the day before it would be ok. If we had been given the correct information, we would have worked out that our member could change their time so as to get to the rehearsals, but as their member of staff said he thought it would be ok we were disqualified. But it won't end there because we will take it further, we said no one had come back to us and said no you must be on time! We know that we would have been in the first 3 too and if we weren't, didn't win a place, well at least we had a go, we have been treated unfairly and it is not good enough!

But to end Iwe would like to thank all the staff especially Wes & Becca from Park Resorts, St. Lawrence, where we won the heats there and to the staff at Highfields who set our sound on Weds and gave us a great sound (bluegrass music is very hard to mic up unless you have been invoved with it for some time). And a big thank you for all our fans who came along to support us we can only say how dissapointed we are for all the work everyone had put in to then be disqulified over such a minor thing.

WE WILL ENTER NEXT YEAR AND WE WILL BE EVEN STRONGER AND BETTER - AND WE WILL WIN!! We will make you proud Wes & Becca you deserve it!!      

It was decided that while we over in Ireland we would think of a new name for the band. We had been talking about it for months and we all agreed that it was time for a change as we have had band member changes etc. So our new name has been born BroadOak Bluegrass Band.  We have a lot of bookings under our old name (WET PAINT), these will still carry on and we are still carrying on with barn dances so no need to worry, everything remains the same apart from our name now. We hope this dose not cause any problems to our bookings we have yet to fullfill.............................................

Next bit of news is that we went down extreamly well over in Ireland at the Johnny Keegan Banjo Festival at Longford. We are now booked to play next year (dates TBC) and we have a few other bookings there too. Our thanks go out to Dick & Eric and their gang who made us most welcomed and put up with us and gave us some lovely accomodation, although Phill and Ken woke up with a bit of a rocking (must have been a big boat passing by!!!............

We have just won a talent contest - Park Resorts Has Got Talent, at Waterside Caravan Park, St Lawrence, Bay, Essex. We have now been put into the finals to be held at  Waterside Caravan Park, St Lawrence, Bay, Essex on the weekend of 7th - 9th Oct 2011.

WE WON!!

 We are now going into the UK finals, Park Resorts, to be held at Highfields, Clacton, Essex on 2nd & 3rd Nov 2011, where if we win that, we get a free holiday and £2000 prize money!!! A big thankyou to all our friends we have made over the last few months at Waterside - you are so great to play for and we hope to see you all again in October THANKS :)