Rising Sun Band plays Northern English dance music with energy and wildness. Preferring a natural, acoustic sound to the heavy amplification and rock rhythm sections favoured by many bands on the circuit, Rising Sun's compact and unusual line-up of hammered dulcimer, concertina, fiddle and guitar gives the band a sparkling and refreshing sound.

Formed originally in 1992, the band has undergone a couple of changes in line-up before settling on the current quartet. In the course of those years Rising Sun has played at major folk festivals including Sidmouth, Fylde and Saddleworth, and some of the country's best ceilidh venues such as Haddenham, Newick, Ryburn, Wigan and the Folkworks Ceilidh Circus. Some of the country's best callers have worked with Rising Sun: Gordon Potts, Hugh Rippon, Martyn Harvey, Dave Hunt and Ashley Hutchings, amongst many others. The band is in regular demand for local dances from weddings to morris dance teams' annual shindigs.

Rising Sun Band has always been proud to play music from Northern England, especially the band's native North-West, and has a unique repertoire based partly on the members' own original research on local music manuscripts. No hackneyed old standards here: both dancers and listeners often remark on the freshness of the tunes the band plays, and their CD Setting It Right (Folksound, 1996) attracted a slew of great reviews in the national folk music press. But the proof of the pudding is in the dancing, and many a packed dance-floor has testified that Rising Sun Band has what it takes to get people moving. So gallop down!