Dance Stance
Musical Genre/Type: Soul
Formed: 1984
Paul Hanlon - Lead Vocals
Neil Sheasby - Bass Guitar
Nick Thomas - Lead Guitar
Phil Ford - Drums
Jim Stretton - Trumpet
Tamworth Herald 05/10/84
THE Dance Stance, the lively and enthusiastic young Atherstone band were forced to pack in their prestigious gig at Atherstone Memorial Hall when a riot broke out which ended with glasses being thrown onto the stage. Dance Stance were understandably said to be shattered by the trouble and MUSICBOX would like to add its condemnation of the violence which ruined what the band hoped would be a triumphant night. The Dream Factory have already cancelled a proposed show at the club and the few who caused the trouble should realise they could kill Atherstone as a live centre altogether. N.B. The Dance Stance are on the lookout for a new brass section or saxophonist.
Tamworth Herald 02/11/84
THE DANCE STANCE have sent out an urgent appeal for a saxophonist or trumpet player to join their tightly-knit youthful outfit. The band who already have quite a following, feel they are being hampered by the lack of a brass section and they urge anyone who may be interested to ring them as soon as possible.
Tamworth Herald – 01/02/85
TAMWORTH is to stage its first-ever ‘Battle of the Bands’ competition next month. The contest, to find Tamworth’s top group, is part of the Young People’s Arts Festival event which is held in the town every two years.
The contest will stretch over five nights at the Tamworth Arts Centre and 16 bands have been lined up to chase the first prize of a special trophy.
The way the contest is run is simple. There will be four qualifying heats with the winners of each earning themselves a guaranteed place in the final.
In addition, there will be a place for the best runner-up, to make a five-band final on Saturday February 23.
The idea for the contest has been around for a long time, following the repeated success of a similar venture in Burton. When the idea was put before Tamworth’s bands, the contest was greeted with universal enthusiasm.
The award follows hot on the heels of Musicbox’s own popular top band contest in which Dream factory took first place.
Competing
The contest gets underway on Thursday, February 14, when Dance Stance, One On One, Love On Board and The Original Royal Family will be competing for a final place.
On each of the four nights each band will be given a maximum of 25 minutes to impress the five judges, who will each give points on content, presentation and, in tru ‘New Faces’ style, star quality.
The acts will be marked out of 10 for content and five for the other two categories, enabling the five judges to award a maximum of 100 points between them.
For the overall winner in each heat, their place in the final is ensured, but for the second-placed bands there will be a nail-biting wait to see which runners-up have the highest points.
As an added incentive, all the five finalists have been guaranteed a place in the August Bank Holiday Festival.
Each of the qualifying heat concerts will cost just 50p admission, and the final, on February 23, will cost 60p. For the bands themselves it will be a unique chance to see who is the local ‘top of the pops’, but for the Tamworth public, it will mean five very good – and very cheap – concerts.
The full night by night line-up is printed below.
Thursday 14th
Dance Stance, One On One, Love On Board, Original Royal Family
Friday 15th
Child’s Play, Wolfsbane, Pulsebeat, Scarab
Saturday 16th
A5, Spirit of Water, Ideal Standard, Sitting Pretty
Friday 22nd
Breaking point, BHX, Caprice, Sacred Oath
Tamworth Herald – 22/02/85
Smashing time as riot hits stage
TOMORROW night Tamworth Arts Centre will play host to the final of the keenly-fought ‘Battle of the Bands’ contest.
The final, featuring five groups will be the culmination of four strong heats, the last of which is at the Arts Centre tonight (Friday),
Already the contest has attracted great interest and has been packed full of surprises and controversy.
It all began last Thursday when three very different acts – Dance Stance, One On One and The Original Royal Family took to the stage.
Controversy started to rage however, when one of the five judges was disqualified for walking out half-way through the gig of the last band The Royal Family. The disqualification gave One On One a clear victory, making them the first band into the final – and therefore the Bank Holiday rock festival.
Overflowing
Twenty-four hours later at the Arts Centre a packed-to-overflowing audience saw an amazing four-band contest. Childs Play opened the proceedings with their former guitarist, who had been dragged out of the bar because their normal player had disappeared!
The shock continued when Vicious Malicious – an unholy alliance of Select Elect and The Elusive They took to the stage and proceeded to smash up guitars and tape recorders as well as run riot with a chainsaw. The word was bizarre. All part of the act, of course.
And, if that wasn’t enough of a culture shock to the audience, then the new Pulsebeat, who after starting cautiously, had the whole crowd on their feet with some brilliant, individual guitar playing.
By now nothing could be surprising – but last band Scarab almost were. They came on and gave a blinding show bashing out 100mph rock anthems which sent their loyal fans into a state of acute frenzy. They threw in volcano-style fireworks, flashing lights and fake blood to provide a riveting performance. Needless to say they won, so booking their automatic place in tomorrow’s final.
The third heat was held last night (Thursday) and one of the following four acts will be in tomorrows final – Ideal Standard, Spirit of Water and Sitting Pretty.
The final heat will be tonight when Breaking Point, BHX, Sacred Oath and Caprice will battle it out.
Each of the acts has a lot going for them and predicting the result is extremely difficult.
BHX have proved their status by being offered several dates all round the country; Sacred Oath are now back fresher and more determined; Caprice get more confident with every gig and Breaking Point are Breaking point.
Surpassed
Don’t forget there will also be a place in tomorrow’s final for the highest scoring runner-up during the whole contest.
On the first two heats, Childs Play and Pulsebeat both with 59 points held second equal though it is likely that this total will be surpassed tomorrow night.
So an extraordinary night is in prospect. The finalists will be given only 20 minutes to impress the judges that they are Tamworth’s top band. The overall winner will be invited to play at the Young People’s Arts festival night in March where they will also be presented with their winning trophy.
Saturday’s final starts at around 8pm and entry is 60p. it is going to be packed to the rafters so people are advised to arrive early to enjoy this potentially tremendous occasion.
SAM HOLLIDAY
Tamworth Herald – 15/11/85
DANCE STANCIANS Paul Hanlon and Neal Sheasby get the Gossipbox award for hob-nobbing with the famous this week.
For recently the duo ended up backstage at a Dexys Midnight Runner show and came face to face with the immortal Kevin Rowland and his fellow celtic soul brothers.
The Atherstone would-be superstars chatted happily for half an hour to the Birmingham rather-wouldn’t-be superstars but surprisingly Neil and Paul never mentioned one thing – that their group Dance Stance is named after a Classic song.
Talking of names, The Sage Side Psycho who has the most bizarre monicker of them all has taken his infamous fanzine ‘Anarchy in Wonderland’ into the Arts Centre after a somewhat disappointing sale so far.
In fact the loveable Sage is still left holding a great amount of anarchistic ramblings and so he is hoping people visiting the Arts Centre will now put their hands in their pockets to see what all the fuss is about.
Ambitious
Still on the Sage, he very kindly sent me a tape full of obscure bands featured in his fanzine. Best stuff of all is the tremendous Buzzcockian June Brides whose new LP is really something special. But that’s another story…
Also ‘another story’ is the imminent success of former BHX bassist Rob Rea. Rob has joined much-noted Platinum Hi. They are an ambitious Liverpool band who have decided to go for broke by setting off for London.
It means Rob, always one of the most likeable and glamorous members of the local rock fraternity, will be leaving the area for a good while. See you on ‘Top Of The pops’ Bobby boy…
And finally, as you may know, Wolfsbane bassist J. F. Bombshell has just changed his name to ‘The slut’. The reason for this is partly because he has changed his haircolour to black in the belief that bleach was slowly killing it. As a ‘natural’ blond I wouldn’t know anything about all that, but I look forward to seeing it. ‘The Slut’s’ change of name and hair colour affects the way he thumps those strings on Sunday.
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Musicbox – Bands get set to do battle in gig five-nighter