A BAND of rock’n’roll reverends will play their last gig next month after seven years of success.

Dogs Without Collars (DWC), made up of four Dorset clergymen, will perform for the last time in Blandford on July 5 at the Crown Hotel.

The band, Clive Thomas, team rector of Shaftesbury on drums, Graham Perryman, rural dean of Sherborne and team rector of the Melbury Team on keyboards, Geoff Boland, team vicar in Canford Magna on guitar and vocals, Hampreston team vicar Lawrie Clow on bass guitar and Blandford rector Tim Storey on guitar and vocals, have raised nearly £40,000 for church and community projects with over 70 performances.

Tim said the band will end with a “bark, not a whimper”.

He added: “It is all a bit sad as we come to the end of an amazing few years but we hope everyone will come along and join us for this last opportunity to party.”

DWC were formed after Lawrie was asked to gather a band together for a clergy conference, but continued to play in aid of good causes from then on.

They are currently coming to the end of the Don’t Put Me Down tour, and have decided to split as “several” members are planning on moving on, Tim said.

“We would like to thank the hundreds – even thousands – of people who have supported gigs over the past years, and hope that they have enjoyed the evenings of mayhem and madness as much as the band have,” he said.

“I said to someone the other day that we must have put more toilets into churches than anyone else.

“We’ve had an enormous amount of fun.

“We enjoy the music itself and the looks on people’s faces when they see a load of vicars taking to the stage.

“It has been fantastic and we’ve loved it.”

The final performance will take place in the hotel’s Sealy Suite.

It will begin at 7.30pm, and all proceeds will be shared between Julia’s House and a building project in South Sudan.

For more information, visit dogswithoutcollars.com or phone 01258 480092.