Live at Lavenham Village Hall: John Otway Big Band Christmas Party

He had to wait until 1977 and the rise of punk before his dream of fame and fortune would finally become a reality. John would have to wait 25 years for his next taste of chart success. In the intervening years, he would become an actor; write an autobiography (Cor Baby That’s Really Me: Rock and Roll’s Greatest Failure); perform sold out shows at London’s Astoria and Royal Albert Hall; make regular appearances at both Glastonbury and Edinburgh Festivals; and write the nation’s seventh favourite lyric of all-time (beating Bob Dylan and Paul Simon in the process).

In 2012, to celebrate his 60th birthday, John produced his debut movie - Otway the Movie: Rock n Roll’s Greatest Failure. The Premiere was held at London’s Leicester Square with the final scenes from the movie filmed on the red carpet and edited into the film as it was being shown. The film was then taken to Cannes Film Festival and a 50-date tour of cinemas in both the UK and North America. It was subsequently voted the 2nd best film of the year in a poll of its readers conducted by The Guardian newspaper. It is currently available on Netflix.

John recorded a popular series of Face-book live shows during the 2020 Lockdown in the UK which has a regular audience of 10,000 viewers (or two and a half Royal Albert Halls which is Otway’s preferred numbering system). The constant gigging over the years meant that in April 2022 John was able to fill London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire for his 5,000th gig - and produce a Free Newspaper listing every single one of those shows. In September of that year, he became Dr. Otway after being awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Oxford Brookes University shortly before his 70th birthday.

2026 Sees John and his band achieve one of the goals John has tried to achieve for the last twenty years. To celebrate the thirty-three and a third anniversary the band (which is some sort of long-playing record) and do a World Tour. The John Otway Band are touring Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Japan playing gigs, making an album and a documentary film.