Music festival beats weather warnings to aid Samaritans
A local music festival defied the weather at the weekend to generate the biggest crowd in its history and raise around £1,000 for Samaritans.
With thunder and lightning forecast, the 'community' show should have taken place in Wolverhampton Arts Centre's New Horizons tent until a last minute decision was taken to move indoors and make sure people could still come together to celebrate the West Midlands music scene.
The Priory, electro pop-rock rebels from the Black Country, drew the biggest crowd as they marked their return after almost two decades away whilst Mama ft. Antonella, Nova Fives, The Straze, Omertá, Stride, Supersonic Fuzz Gun and Vinyl Attraction crew DJs had everyone on their feet and dancing throughout the day.
The show also featured two late additions to the line-up. The first saw newly local Jack Bodhi, of Liverpudlian band Pacificaze, get in some practice for a solo set at Glastonbury this month as he proved community isn't always restricted by geography.
The other was a short, unannounced and very last minute set by We Were Kings - a band formed by a group of friends that reconnected following the passing of local musician Andrew Titley.
The band - which includes Andrew's brother Chris and members of other bands from across the Black Country - are named after the title of one of Andrew's own original songs and a four track EP has been recorded in his memory.
Originally from Sedgley, Andrew was living in Wales when he became unwell with cancer so all proceeds are being donated to the hospice close to his home at the time, St David's. The EP can be downloaded from Bandcamp and there is a limited run of CD copies available.
The night was rounded off by Smokin Eskimo, who themselves had friends and family come over from the United States to be part of the celebrations, as the West Midlands really came together to be as one - even allowing for football rivalries!
