Express & Star

Flashback to 2012: Rockers, pop art and arch take centre stage

Showaddywaddy kept rock’n’roll alive as Christmas came early at the Wulfrun Hall.

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Showaddywaddy at Wulfrun Hall Wolverhampton.

By the end of their performance in front of an enthusiastic crowd last night, members of the audience were invited on stage to get up close and personal with the stars of the show.

The rockers staged the latest leg of their Greatest Hits tour with a mixture of their own hits and other iconic songs of the time, which gave an overview that was easy to enjoy.

The front-of-house foursome exemplified the music of their time – all capable of of playing the guitar and singing in equal measure with gusto.

Cover wise, the likes of Dambusters, Come On Everybody, Angel Eyes, Summertime Blues and Jailhouse Rock were the cream of a bountiful crop.

Of their own material, Three Steps To Heaven, A Little Bit Of Soap, You Got What It Takes and Sweet Little Rock’n’Roller was the pick of what they do best.

The purported last track of the evening was the one the audience had all been waiting for, the wildly popular Under The Moon Of Love, their only No 1 from 1976.

During the same week back in 2012, an artist from Wolverhampton was making waves with his eye-catching work.

Ewan ‘Black Dog’ Cherney was featured in the Express & Star with his pop art images of famous faces such as Marilyn Monroe Bruce Lee, Bob Marley and Kylie Minogue.

He also presented a portrait of actor Craig Charles to the man himself.

Artist Ewan 'Black Dog' Cherney with his pop art style paintings of music icons.

And the Red Dwarf and Coronation Street favourite gave the artwork by Ewan 'Black Dog' Cherney the thumbs up.

Mr Cherney, aged 49, handed over the picture at one of Charles's DJ performances at the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath, Birmingham.

He said: "I had a spare canvas lying around and I knew I was going to go see him so I thought why not.

"I took me around two weeks to complete and when I met Craig Charles he said he really liked and found it very flattering."

The former sign writer produced his mainly black and white pieces on his dining room table at his home in Belmont Road, Penn, using normal household acrylic paint.

He told the Express & Star: "It started about a year ago. It was my brother's birthday and I thought I would produce a picture of his favourite album cover and I've not stopped from there on."

He said that he was hoping to sell his pieces to museums, galleries and nightclubs and hoped to soon hold an exhibition of his works.

He was also looking at creating a collection of other local artists work on his website.

Elsewhere in Wolverhampton, a monument was unveiled by schoolchildren at a newly opened £15million housing estate in Wolverhampton.

The Tarran Memory Arch was developed by students from Deansfield Community School to celebrate memories of life on the former Tarran Estate in East Park.

The estate was built as temporary pre-fab housing after the Second World War.

MP Pat McFadden officially unveils the Tarran Estate monument next to East Park Library, Wolverhampton

Bromford Housing Group has just finished building 111 two and three-bedroom bungalows on the East Park Estate, which sat on the old Tarran site.

Work on the project started in 2005 in a bid to regenerate the area. Wolverhampton South East MP Pat McFadden was also at the monument unveiling.

He said: “I live in the East Park area so I have seen this development from start to finish. This is the latest phase of change in East Park.

The new bungalows look great and the provision of quality affordable housing like this is very important to the local area.”

The mounument was decorated with quotes from local residents capturing life in the 1950s, and includes students’ artwork.

Schoolchildren were also involved in the creation of the new bungalows, helping to decorate the show home which will later be available for rent.

They chose the colours, painted the walls and decided what furniture to have.

Pupil Grant Sambrooks, 14, who helped design the bedroom, said: “We went for mainly black and white because we thought it was modern but old people would like it as well and went for Marilyn Monroe pictures on the wall which we thought both generations would go for that.”

Bromford Housing could have built double the number of properties but were committed to retaining the same ‘footprint’ as the old prefabs after talking to residents.

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