The Orbison Project

A Six-Piece Built to Get One Voice Right

Dave Collison has spent more than twenty-five years chasing Roy Orbison's voice, a three-octave range that could drop to a murmur and then snap into falsetto inside the same line. He has built a reputation on it, with shows at the Cavern Club, the Troubadour and the Half Moon behind him, and he leads a six-piece here rather than performing solo.

Guitarist Dzal Martin played with 1960s hitmakers The Equals before joining. The band itself came together in 2019, just before the pandemic hit, and learned its arrangements over Zoom calls before ever playing together in the same room.

The set runs the catalogue that took Orbison from teen idol to elder statesman of the Traveling Wilburys: "Only the Lonely," "In Dreams," "Crying," "It's Over," "Running Scared," "I Drove All Night," and "You Got It," the song he co-wrote with Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne in the months before his death in December 1988.

Orbison's songs only work sung completely straight, with no wink to the crowd, and that is the test this band has spent five years passing.

Friday 18 September 2026 · Cider Mill Theatre, Chipping Campden School, Cidermill Lane, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire GL55 6HU · Doors 6:30pm, Starts 7:30pm