The Bandits

When Lin and I moved to Andalucia in 2013, we were looking forwards to seeing some live music, and one day we happened to see Acoustic Roots performing at a local restaurant called Alberdini. Acoustic Roots were Mitch France (main vocals, acoustic guitar, mandolin and penny whistles), and Roger Sparks (vocals, harmonies, acoustic guitar) playing stuff by The Beatles, The Eagles, Simon and Garfuncle, John Prine, Manu Chao, etc., sometimes with backing tracks but mostly amplified acoustic.

We liked the music, the irreverent humour, and because I thought Mitch sounded a little like John Lennon, so I emailed Mitch and asked him to let me know if ever they needed a keyboard player. He quickly replied and said they would give it some thought. We enjoyed watching the various other local bands playing open air venues during the summer evenings, and we tended to see Acoustic Roots a couple of times a month. One day Mitch asked if I’d create the keyboard backing track for the Dire Straits number, Brothers in Arms… so I did, and this was added to their set.

A few weeks later Mitch and Roger suggested that I ‘guested’ with them, along with a local saxophonists called Tom Robinson on some forthcoming gigs. So Tom and I started joining Rog and Mitch for practice at Mitch’s studio, working on new material like ‘Baker Street’, ‘Le Petite Fleur’, and Frank Sinatra’s ‘Good Year’. The gigs included a NYE (2013) gig at a local hotel… possibly the biggest event in the area.

As the band developed to include more songs for keyboards and Sax, we changed the band name to The Rooters. There were lots of gigs during the spring and summer of 2014, and by this point the set included stuff by ELO, Bob Marley, Eric Clapton, Bill Withers, Supertramp, Snow Patrol, and even a version of The Beatles ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’!

Rog and his wife Penny would disappear around November time to spend the winter on their yacht in the Caribbean(!), so it would just be Mitch, Tom and myself until spring. Then in late 2015 Rog and Penny decided to call it a day in Spain, and return to the UK. In 2016 Tom decided that he was too involved in the local choir, and would also drop out of the band. So it was just Mitch and I for a while.

Then in late 2016, we were joined by Marshall Dixon on drums (or cajon), and Ian Hayton on guitar, vocals and occasional bass. We changed our name to the Jukebox Bandits, and I remember one of our first gigs under this name was inside a very drafty marquee in Competa Plaza for New Year’s Eve 2016. Early in 2017 we were joined by Ken Peacock on Sax and flute, and our mutual friend Kees de Leeuw would often guest with us during the last set, and sing some Rolling Stones numbers.

Then in January 2018 Marsh and Ian left, and Ken soon after, so it was back to Mitch and I continuing under the new name The Bandits. Mitch bought himself a saxophone shortly afterwards, and became proficient quite quickly. We mostly played to backing tracks, but we’d recorded them ourselves so at least they were our backing tracks! In the meantime, Ian and Marsh had formed a band called The Dawgs with Kees guesting on vocals, and Ken joined a band called Liquid Lunch.

There were plenty of gigs for The Bandits in 2018 (mostly in Competa, Canillas de Albaida, and Algorrobo Costa), likewise in 2019 (including a Jukebox Bandits ‘reunion’ at our house in Competa), but with 2020 came the Coronavirus pandemic and with it, limits on our mobility, so it was a weird year with (I think) three gigs and limited to venues that could accomodate social distancing.

2021 arrived and by now, Mitch and I were both vaccinated and gigging around twice a month, as life slowly got back to something approaching normality.