If you’re after a Wildes Inns wedding band that can carry your whole reception without ever sounding like a wedding disco playlist on shuffle, you’re in the right place. Punch The Air is a three-piece indie rock covers band playing real guitars, real drums and real vocals, and no backing tracks propping anything up. We know this Derbyshire country house hotel and its Ballroom well enough to know exactly how to fill it once the dancing starts. Contact band leader Andy to check on fee and availability.
What Makes Punch The Air the Right Wildes Inns Wedding Band
There’s no shortage of wedding bands who’ll turn up, plug in and work their way through the same tired set of covers. Punch The Air was formed in 2013 with a different idea in mind: play the songs indie rock fans actually grew up on, play them properly, and let the energy of a real band do the work a DJ or a duo can’t. We’re guitar-led, three-piece, and every note on the night is played live.
One Set, Properly Timed, No Filler
Rather than splitting the evening into two shorter chunks with a long gap in between, we play one continuous set once the cake has been cut and the buffet has cleared. It means the room stays full, the momentum never drops, and none of the band’s time gets wasted on false starts because guests aren’t ready to boogy yet and are probably being forced to enjoy themselves too early. A later live performance means a more natural time to start enjoying the evenings entertainment. For a Wildes Inns wedding band booking, that timing matters, because you want your guests dancing at the point in the evening when they’re actually ready to. That said if you’d rather we performed two sets instead then this really isn’t an issue for us. It’s your wedding so you should always have it YOUR way.
Playing the Ballroom at Wildes Inns
Wildes Inns, on Worksop Road in Clowne, is a substantial country house hotel with several function spaces to choose from depending on the size of your wedding. The main Ballroom handles the bigger receptions, while the Sherwood Suite offers a slightly more intimate reception room, and couples marrying on site can also use the Chapel or the walled garden for the ceremony itself. However you’ve arranged your day, a live band changes the room in a way that recorded music can’t quite match, and a Wildes Inns wedding band booking is as much about that shift in atmosphere as it is about the music itself.
The building itself has a longer history than its current name suggests. The Wildes Group took on the former Van Dyk Hotel and carried out a £6 million refurbishment, completed in early 2020, adding new bedrooms, a spa, a brasserie and three walled gardens alongside what was described at the time as a full rebrand of the venue. For a good while afterwards it traded as Van Dyk by Wildes, and that name still crops up on some booking sites, but the venue’s own branding has since settled on simply Wildes Inns.
Here we are performing live as a Wildes Inns Wedding Band at a lovely wedding reception.
A Drinks Reception Option Worth Knowing About
If your ceremony or drinks reception is happening on site before the wedding breakfast, Andy also offers a solo acoustic performance earlier in the day, separate from the full band set later on. It’s a nice way of having live music running through more of the day without asking a three-piece band to play for hours longer than makes sense.
Songs You Might Hear on the Night
Our full repertoire runs well beyond what fits on any one page, but a Punch The Air set at Wildes Inns might well include Feeder’s “Buck Rogers”, Walk The Moon’s “Shut Up and Dance”, The Fratellis’ “Chelsea Dagger”, James’ “Sit Down”, Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and Bryan Adams’ “Summer of ’69”. It’s a mix built to move between eras and moods without ever feeling like a covers band ticking boxes.
Not Just Weddings
While most of our bookings at venues like this one are wedding receptions and wedding parties, the same three-piece set-up works just as well for other private events at Wildes Inns: milestone birthdays, wedding anniversaries, corporate parties and private hire evenings. If you’re planning any kind of celebration where you want a live band rather than a playlist, the same booking process applies.
Clowne, Chesterfield and the Surrounding Area
Wildes Inns sits just outside Clowne, close to the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire border, within easy reach of Chesterfield, Worksop and Bolsover, and not far from the edge of South Yorkshire towards Sheffield. We’re regularly booked as a party band in Chesterfield and across the wider Derbyshire area, and we also play venues further into Nottinghamshire and across into Yorkshire. Couples looking at other country house hotels nearby sometimes also compare us against our page for the Fox and Goose near Chesterfield.
As an indie rock wedding band, we’re used to reading a room full of guests who might range from teenagers to grandparents, and building a set that keeps all of them on the dancefloor rather than just the ones who know every word to the latest chart hits.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Punch The Air a full band or a duo at Wildes Inns?
We perform as a three-piece band: guitar, bass and drums, with lead vocals from Andy.
Can you play a wedding reception and a birthday party at the same venue?
Yes. The booking process is the same whether it’s a wedding reception, an anniversary, a birthday or a corporate event at Wildes Inns.
Where exactly is Wildes Inns?
Wildes Inns is on Worksop Road, Clowne, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, S43 4TD.
How do I check availability for my date?
Contact band leader Andy directly with your date and he’ll confirm fee and availability.