May 6, 2012

9:30 am

To coincide with the Artisan and Flea Markets the Cheese and Grain Box Office will be opening on Sunday 6th May from 9.30am until 2.00pm. All payment types accepted.

Also open is the Box Office on the Hill! A small selection of Cheese and Grain tickets will be available from our On the Hill Box Office for customers paying cash or cheque only.

June 30, 2012

9:00 am

‘The Giant Vintage Rag Market’ – a really exciting opportunity for anyone who loves vintage.

The ladies that bring you The Vintage Bazaar are in Frome on Saturday June 30th with a new venture.

On  the day the hall at the Cheese and Grain will be packed to the rafters with vintage dealers having a clear out! What could be better than rummaging through tons of vintage goodies all at exceptional prices? The handpicked stallholders have raided their stores, sheds, attics and homes and will be bringing vintage textile related goodies from fragments of 18^th century silk waistcoats, Victorian shell buttons, Edwardian lace scraps, pre-war French work wear, 1940′s patched pinnies and 1950′s satin dresses in need of love, restoration or reworking. This is an amazing opportunity to find quality vintage pieces at rock bottom prices.

We suggest you get there early so you don’t miss out!

9am – 3pm

Admission £1.00

September 26, 2012

8:00 pm

Bob Geldof has just released his new studio album “How To Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell” and is undertaking a few shows to perform tracks from the album and hits of The Boomtown Rats.

Irish singer, songwriter, author, occasional actor and political activist, Bob Geldof,  rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside the punk rock movement. The band had hits with his compositions “Rat Trap” and “I Don’t Like Mondays”. He co-wrote “Do They Know It’s Christmas?  One of the best-selling singles of all time. He starred as Pink in Pink Floyd’s 1982 film Pink Floyd the Wall. Geldof is widely recognized for his activism, especially anti-poverty efforts concerning Africa. In 1984, he and Midge Ure founded the charity supergroup Band Aid to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. They went on to organize the charity super-concert Live Aid the following year and the Live 8 concerts in 2005^.

Geldof currently serves as an adviser to the ONE Campaign, founded by fellow Irish humanitarian Bono. A single father, he has also been outspoken for the fathers’ rights movement. Among numerous other awards and nominations, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, granted an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II, and is a recipient of the Man of Peace title which recognizes individuals who have made “an outstanding contribution to international social justice and peace”.

Iin 1975 Geldof became the lead singer of the band The Boomtown Rats, a rock group closely linked with the punk movement. In 1978, The Boomtown Rats had their first No. 1 single in the UK with “Rat Trap”, which was the first new wave chart-topper in Britain. In 1979, the group gained international renown with their second UK No. 1, “I Don’t Like Mondays”. This was equally successful, as well as controversial;

Geldof left The Boomtown Rats in 1986, to launch a solo career and publish his autobiography, is that it? Which was a best-seller? His first solo records spawned the hit singles “This Is the World Calling” (co-written with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics) and “The Great Song of Indifference”. He also occasionally performed with other artists, such as David Gilmour of Pink Floyd and Thin Lizzy. A performance of “Comfortably Numb” with David Gilmour is documented in the 2002 DVD David Gilmour in Concert. In 1992, he performed at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert with the surviving members of Queen at the old Wembley Stadium, singing a song he had co-written with Mercury, called “Too Late God”.

Along with U2′s Bono, he has devoted much time since 2000 to campaigning for debt relief for developing countries. His commitments in this field, including the organization of the Live 8 concerts, kept Geldof from producing any more musical output since 2001′s Sex, Age & Death album.

Geldof has released a new album “How To Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell” on the Mercury Record label. It is his first album since 2001’s “Sex, Age & Death” and is his fifth album as a solo artist (his eleventh if you include his work in The Boomtown Rats).  The album features 14 new Geldof compositions recorded with his band in his home and in various friends’ studios and produced by his longtime collaborator Pete Briquette.

www.bobgeldof.com

Doors 8pm

£24.00 advance

Book tickets on-line from

October 27, 2012

8:00 pm

Back by popular demand! The high energy rock n boogie tour!

With LIVE/WIRE… THE AC/DC SHOW.

The unique six man tribute to rock’s greatest band AC/DC, complete with cannons, a wall of Marshalls and  two hours of High Voltage Rock and Roll.  And with both Bon Scott and Brian Johnson present, the very start of AC/DC is covered followed by a musical tour of the past forty Electric years as the Rock and Roll Train powers on and on until the cannons fire ceremoniously to bring the evening to a superb crescendo.

Plus …THE ZZ TOPS

Senors and Senoritas it’s fiesta time! So put on those cheap sunglasses and get down to the Hot Rodded Boogie of The ZZ Tops ! These Sharp Dressed Men are not to be missed !

“Closest I’ve Seen!”-Billy Gibbons ZZ Top.

£18.50 adv/£20.00 door

Doors 8pm

October 21, 2012

1:00 pm

The first ever Frome Blues Festival has been announced!

A day & evening full of music, food and bars!

Earlybird tickets now on sale

The first act has been announced as Clare Free, one of the freshest, fastest rising stars on the UK Blues circuit – her roots lie in the blues but her influences go way beyond the genre making her one of the most exciting new artists writing and performing in the blues world today. A passionate, award nominated, songwriter and a fabulous guitar player, she plays both with a band and solo. Clare’s performances are fiery, exciting and heartfelt.

http://www.clarefree.co.uk/

Also just announced as joining the line-up – blues musician, guitarist, singer and songwriter, Eddie Martin.

and… Jo Harman & Company,  playing a dynamic mix of styles from soul, blues and gospel fused with rootsy rock.  Jo’s evocative voice and compelling stagecraft have seen her dubbed one of the most exciting singers of her generation, adding to her growing reputation as a a blues-fuelled singer of exceptional promise and note.

plus… the Oli Brown Band

Up until 2002, Oli Brown had never picked up a guitar, yet by 2006 (at just 16) he had toured in America, twice, opening for Blues royalty such as Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor, Taj Mahal, shared UK stages with Walter Trout, Paul Jones, Buddy Whittington and even the Godfather of British Blues, John Mayall. Not only is Oli a guitar prodigy but he is also a singer, songwriter and consummate performer. This is a young man who shows total dedication to the genre he loves. Voted ‘Male Vocalist of the Year’ & ‘Young Artist of the Year’ – British Blues Awards 2010.

£22.00 (inc bkg fee)

1pm – 10pm

Seated & standing

July 15, 2012

8:00 pm

The Idiot Bastard Band are a band dedicated to the comic song.

They are:

They play songs by The Bonzos, Jake Thackeray, Syd Barret, George Formby, They Might Be Giants, Ian Drury, Mel Brooks, The Mighty Sparrow, and many of their very own brand spanking new compositions.

During the winter of 2010/2011 they held a raucous eight-week residency at The Wilmington Arms in Clerkenwell. Famously advertised as ‘Live Rehearsals’ the shows were a heady mixture of excitement and catastrophe, at once fabulously warm surprising and hilarious. They have done something familiar this year at Monto Water rats, where they found that actually, they weren’t half bad…so they’ve booked a few more shows and thought they might even bang a few festival performances out this summer.

Doors 8pm

£21.00 advance (inc bkg fee)

Book tickets on-line from

If the second stage application were successful, it would help pay for a wide range of environmental initiatives such as extensive new tree planting, insulating homes, more micro-generation of electricity, helping people cut their fuels bills and producing more food locally, including helping people grow their own food. Most of the money would not be spent by the Cheese and Grain, but by a partnership of local organisations including the Co-op and Frome’s biggest housing association.

Steve Macarthur, the Cheese and Grain Manager explained, “Our partnership approach with Frome Town Council over the fitting of solar panels to our roof helped us win the first round bid. It’s our roof, but the panels belong to the people of Frome. In the end the panels only cost about £34,000 and will make Frome a handsome profit. But, and this is probably more important, by working together on the project we demonstrated Frome Town Council’s, and the Cheese and Grain’s, commitment to dealing with environmental issues in a way that benefits lots of people”.

The partners in the bid include: The Co-operative (that runs the new food store and post office in the Westway, the Astor Group (that now runs Flourish Homes), Sustainable Frome, Frome Town Council and the Frome Development Community Interest Company, (that initiated the project and supported it from the very start).

Communities Living Sustainably is a Lottery scheme to bring together the public, private, voluntary and community sectors to help 10 towns be examples of how to deal with the impact of climate change. These ten communities will provide inspiration and share their learning with other communities across England. Special attention is given to how low income households might be helped to cope with rising food and heating costs.

The Cheese and Grain must now submit a complex and detailed application to the Lottery by the 25^th June, but the manager warns that these are extraordinarily difficult grants to get. He adds, “even if we are unsuccessful at round two, the preparation of the application will blueprint dozens of worthwhile projects that we may be able to fund separately in the future”.

April 18, 2012

8:00 pm

Pete Doherty – POSTPONED

18 April @ Cheese & Grain Frome

Unfortunately this show has been postponed. We’re working with management to secure a new date as we speak and should have news very soon for you. Please do hang onto your tickets for the new date as they will remain 100% valid. Your ticket agents will be in touch with you all shortly to confirm this officially via the e-mail or phone that you used to book your tickets through.

July 13, 2012

8:00 pm

The Cheese & Grain and the Frome Festival join forces to bring you an evening of hypnotic dance grooves from JuJu, possibly the most exciting live band in music today.

Gambian griot Juldeh Camara is master of the fiery one-string ritti fiddle and a singer of mystic power. Driven by Justin Adams’ guitar, their fierce, startling combination of driving blues-rock and spine-tinglingly brilliant African sounds is gripping to watch, thrilling to hear and impossible not to dance to. Simultaneously grounded and spiralling off into the stratosphere, theirs is an urgent, intense and completely enveloping sound, earning them Mojo magazine’s World Music Album of the Year for their current CD ‘In Trance’.

The four-piece have played in bands including Massive Attack, Robert Plant, Portishead, Anika, Beak, Tinariwen, Sinead O’Connor, Jah Wobble and many more. Juldeh is capable of far more on one string than many can achieve on four and his partnership with Justin – who came out of the post-punk period in West London, where dub and funk met Islamic sounds and Afro-beats – works to perfection. Billy Fuller on bass is a vinyl junky, rooted in the Bristol scene. Drummer Dave Smith is a leading light of the young jazz and improvised music scene, who has long studied the sabah drumming of Gambia.

“I owe everything to Justin Adams.” Robert Plant

“I can go on for paragraph after paragraph about the intensity and the completely enveloping aspect of the music and about the mesmeric and almost chemical effect it has on the aware mind but I would rather you, dear reader, go ahead and experience this wonder for yourself. I just want to dive back in and enjoy it again.” music-news.com

“The sounds of guitar & Gambian fiddle complement each other perfectly and Justin & Juldeh clearly fire each other’s playing…Hot stuff.” The Evening Standard, 5/5

“It’s a heady brew of hard bop, wild folk thunder, invigorating drumming and super-tooled rock dynamics.” Daily Mirror

“Adams & Camara interact with extraordinary intuition and one never knows where they are going next.” The Guardian

“The result of this unlikely pairing is this furiously syncopated, no-holds-barred rock made marvellously strange by Camara’s squawking fiddle and invocatory singing.” The Daily Telegraph

“Spectacular… always fresh, playful and exuberant. Adams draws on rootsy rock ‘n’ roll, Muddy Waters blues and desert guitarists such as Ali Farka Toure and gives space for his co-star to shine… always sounding rough, ready and right.” Evening Standard

“The mutual respect between them is wonderful to watch and it leads to jamming with a mesmeric passion and some marvellous guile as Camara seems to lead Adams down one path only to throw him the steepest of musical curve balls.” musicnews.com

“As the evening went on, JuJu built the groove, taking the crowd with them on an exploratory journey in the world of trance. There were some Jimi Hendrix moments – virtuosic fiddling from Juldeh, Justin rocking out on electric guitar supplying the bedrock of the JuJu sound, beefy bass from Billy Fuller and Dave the drummer keeping it tight throughout.” propergandaonline.com

“JuJu delivered a brilliant set, with Camara’s one-string fiddle weaving through Adams’s guitarwork to create a truly magical climax to this outstanding event.” R2 Magazine

Doors 8pm

£14.00 advance / £16.00 doors

Book tickets on-line from

MoJo – World Album of the Year                Guitar & Bass – Album of the Year

FRoots – Critics Poll Top 10                       Live Set of the Year – The Wrong Rock Show

realworldrecords.com/artists/juju

May 26, 2012

8:00 pm

The Guns N Roses Experience have the only singer able to deliver the exact same unique vocal style and stage show synonymous with classic Axl Rose. They have the only tribute band guitarist officially endorsed by Marshall Amps, just like the legend Slash himself.

With a true Guns N Roses sound and stage show, GNRE meticulously recreate every visual detail and every musical note to capture that reckless spirit of the original Guns N Roses legendary live performances.

Doors 8pm

£10.00 advance/ £12.00 door

Book tickets on-line from