Meet The Band
Bob Minnell - Vocals and Guitars
Bob joined his first band as a drummer while still at school. At this time he studied guitar but being a 'lefty' caused great consternation with his music teacher by playing a right handed guitar upside down. This was not an attempt to be clever, but a lack of knowledge that they made left handed guitars! After leaving school, he relearned with a proper left handed guitar but only played at church and for self-entertainment. Aside from the guitar playing, Bob joined a local choir and developed more of an interest in choral music as well as rock. It was the singing ability that led to him being approached by Dragonfly over 20 years ago to 'just sing this song' and he has been with them ever since.
Dave Barnes - Lead Guitars
David joined the band in 2010 after a rigorous audition process, during which he met the important requirements of 'having his own pen' and 'being able to lend Bob a plectrum'. Since then he's built on his reputation by also lending Bob a Capo and repeatedly turning up on time for practice. As a relative newcomer he's still excited by the (many) challenge(s) of playing with Dragonfly but is eventually expected to find the 'way out' that has so far evaded Bob.
Richard Gunn - Bass Guitars
Richard's musical career started at around 17 playing in a band with school friends just for their own entertainment (it certainly would not have entertained anybody else); at that time he played percussion and a variety of recorders of varying sizes and squeakiness. At university, he learned to play guitar, although only for personal use, and a few years later took to playing bass, as it has fewer strings to worry about. Then over 10 years ago, Bob asked him if he would like to play a 'one-off' gig with Dragonfly, as their bass player was unavailable; many years later, he is still waiting for the previous bass player to return. This year he will mostly be playing 5 string fretted and fretless basses; he now has 3 to choose from, to keep up with the minimum of 5 guitars that Bob and David usually play between them. Richard has also has a set of Moog Bass Pedals and usually inflicts them on an unsuspecting audience in our In Concert gigs.
Richard Wort - keyboards
Richard began learning the church organ aged 13 whilst at Oaklands School.
In the last 26 years he has been organist for 2 churches, played Organ and Piano as well as conduct the choir for some of the tracks on an album recorded by one of the churches, sung in choirs and played keyboards for a few bands. All this and with no formal music qualifications.
His musical influences include such keyboarding greats as J.S. Bach, Rick Wakeman, Dudley Moore, Victor Borge, Les Dawson and Rowlf the dog from the Muppets.
Since joining Dragonfly Richard has favoured a keyboard rig to rival that of Mr. Wakeman however budget constraints have limited him to a maximum of 4 instruments.
John Upton - drums, percussion and backing vocals
John co-founded the band more than 25 years ago, by which time he was already quite old. Despite several changes in the line-up he still can't resist the call of the drums, while his range of percussion instruments keeps on growing. John now has a pair of congas but we are still waiting for the Chinese gong.
