Shropshire wedding bands
2 hours of live wedding band music + free DJ! As far as wedding bands in Shropshire go, we have probably performed more gigs at more Shropshire wedding venues than most local wedding bands. Wherever you hold your wedding reception in Shropshire, you can hire HARD TO HANDLE BAND.
Our dance floor friendly music means it will be a hot and sweaty affair on the dancefloor but that’s the way we like it; it means that people are enjoying our live wedding music, and when you see all your guests dancing at your wedding party you can be confident that you made the right choice for your live entertainment.
Here’s what HARD TO HANDLE BAND offer:
- Professional three piece Shropshire wedding band
- Up to 2 hours of live band music including indie rock, modern pop and rock n roll
- Perfect for venues without the space to hire a large events band
- Massive playlist of rock, indie, pop, folk, soul and more – over 350 songs
- Your song requests (including your first dance song) performed by the band – choose your favourite songs
- Free DJ service!
- Sound and lighting
- Non-stop entertainment
- Fully insured
- Hire us direct for no agency fees
- More cost effective than most other Shropshire wedding bands
- Full dance floor
Our huge range of multi-genre music and onstage energy means we are chosen by over 200 brides and grooms each year as their wedding band throughout the Shropshire area. Take a look at the videos, music and Shropshire wedding band reviews on our website and get in touch – call us direct on 0796 433 5657 or email us here.
The perfect Shropshire wedding band for your event
Of course, we also perform throughout the year at all types of events, but as when it comes to wedding bands Shropshire doesn’t seem to boast too many professional local bands, we are especially in demand as a pop and rock band for wedding entertainment. Of the live bands which call Shropshire their home, the one or two best Shropshire wedding bands should have a reputation for being highly versatile and lots of fun. HARD TO HANDLE BAND certainly do – seeing us perform as a wedding band is quite an experience, and brides, grooms and other party hosts tell us that the energy we put into our performances and the mix of music is superb. They love the full sound we create with just three talented musicians. The fact that we play together so often as a wedding band (around 170 bookings per year) means that we’re very tight, know how to make each song sound great and we don’t need additional musicians to help us do it.
Some of the more modern hotels in Shropshire can accommodate large function bands, but because of our onstage energy and big personality, we can fill just about any size stage. But if on the other hand your wedding is smaller, as a three piece band we’re absolutely perfect. In fact, you don’t need to hire a large wedding band in order to get your guests on the dance floor, you just need a band with the requisite experience to be able to work the room.
All bands for hire will tell you that they are the best wedding band for you, but one of the best ways to put this to the test is to take a look at their playlist. What music do the wedding bands perform? Will they play your first dance? Whereas a jazz band and indie rock bands will play to their strengths and play genre of music they are comfortable with all night, when you see a wedding bands playlist and it features a broad mix of classic and contemporary modern pop, indie rock and much more, there is more likely to be live music to get all of your guests on the dance floor.
Searching for the best wedding band
There is a school of thought which suggests that hiring a local live band for your wedding party is the best idea. In some cases it may be the best option – some local bands will be more cost effective than bands from outside the area, and you may feel that a local band will have a better understanding of your taste in music than bands travelling from further afield. This can be true, but not always.
How long have you been searching for Shropshire wedding musicians for? A week? A month? If you have spent any time dedicated to searching for the best live wedding bands, at some point in the decision making process you will have probably experience those horrible feeling of frustration and exasperation whereby you realise that you are just looking at the same Shropshire wedding bands over and over again, or at least finding wedding bands in Shropshire which appear to sound and look remarkably similar.
Hiring a local wedding band
You take a look at the party band performing in their videos and think “haven’t I seen this wedding band before?” Sometimes there can be too much choice, but it’s made worse if all of those choices are essentially the same thing. Party bands, jazz bands, wedding music bands – they all start to blur into one. How does one find Shropshire wedding musicians who stand out from the bland and uninspiring bands for hire you have come across thus far?
Talented musicians ARE out there. You don’t have to settle for second or third best for wedding entertainment. Your wedding band SHOULD be perfect for you though, and there’s no point in hiring party bands in the hope that they will probably be OK. If you’re not “feeling” your wedding band from the list of so-called “best wedding bands” that Google has shown you so far, it’s time to move on.
If you’re suspecting that when it comes to wedding bands Shropshire has 15 or 20 function bands who look and sound the same, you would be right. But as with many things in life, this isn’t accidental – it’s by design. Entertainment agency websites – the type of websites you found when you first searched for a Shropshire pop and rock band or party band have ensured that the large party band is all you will see in your initial search.
And it’s not just that they think that these type of live bands are what work best for wedding receptions. Instead it will be what will be the biggest spend, because entertainment agencies operate as business and they know that the more professional musicians play in a function band, the more expensive they will be. Not only that, but when you hire band for your wedding party through an agency, you will be paying a commission that stays with the agency and does not reach the function band.
This is essentially why most of the live music for hire in Shropshire feature six or more musicians – to get you to spend more money than you would like to. However, one would have to ask the question: surely if a function band does feature that many live musicians, they are going to sound a lot better than if you were to hire a wedding band with fewer musicians such as HARD TO HANDLE?
The answer is no, because some of these players are simply there to make up the numbers. So in reality, you hire a party band in Shropshire but some of the musicians don’t actually do very much. This is especially true of the brass section who may play during soul songs, but don’t really play at all during the indie, rock n roll and pop numbers. If you are happy for them to stand around not playing, that’s fine – they will have been plenty of weddings where this is what they have done.
Sounds farcical, doesn’t it? But there are so many wedding music bands that have been put together purely so the entertainment agency can make more money. We have to wonder if the so-called happy couples we read about in their reviews danced the whole night long or felt somewhat disappointed…
Indie anthems, rock hits, pop, soul and more
So you have found a band you like the look and sound of. They look like they’re having a good time in their promo videos, the singer sings well and the other musicians seem to sound good. The written reviews appear to be glowing, so that all bodes well. But then you take a look at the all-important playlist and it’s a bit underwhelming. Not quite enough songs and not quite enough variety. If a bands’ playlist is 50 or so songs, one has to ask some questions. Why do they play so few songs? Will the mix of music they play be broad enough to suit everyone? What happens if I don’t like the songs they play?
If a band only have a short playlist, it’s indicative of a few things that you may wish to consider. The most obvious reason why a band doesn’t have enough songs in their repertoire is that they haven’t learnt any more, and this could be because they are fairly new on the scene. This might be reflected in their fee, but is the trade off between hiring a cheap band for your evening reception and not them being able to perform songs that will get your guests dancing really a risk you are willing to take?
Another reason is that the band you are looking at is a “scratch band” – a group of musicians who have been assembled purely just to service a booking. This is something that can happen when hiring a wedding entertainment service through an entertainment agency. The agency takes the booking and then contacts its’ pool of musicians to see who is available for your evening entertainment. Inevitably it means that some of the musicians who attend your wedding may not have played with each other before and only all know a small number of songs that they can play together.
Finally, at the other end of the spectrum, it may just be that the band in question simply don’t want to expand their repertoire. If they have been playing together for a number of years, their playlist may have worked well to begin and they see no reason to change what they do by adding other songs to their playlist. This is a big red flag – if they don’t want to play songs that you might want to request (not even your first dance), what else will they refuse to do for you?
Let’s get serious. You want a cost effective party band who sound great and look like they are having fun. You want to book entertainment that will get the party started and keep your guests on the dance floor all night. You want a Shropshire wedding band that will play lots of genres of music – indie, rock, pop, soul and more. HARD TO HANDLE tick all the boxes! Take a look at our videos, listen to our music, read our news and reviews and get in touch!
Hire Hard to Handle band in Shropshire
Get in touch! For enquiries or just to find out more about Hard to Handle band, fill in the form below. We aim to respond within 24 hours. If you haven’t heard from us by then, we may not have received your enquiry so please call us direct on 0796 433 5657.