Ever since its formation in the early 1970s, Lichfield Arts has taken a pride in bringing national names to Lichfield, as well as giving local performers a platform to experience of playing to a live audience.
The second part of the organisation’s ethos was in plentiful evidence when some talented musicians played to a near capacity crowd at The Hub at St Mary’s.
Most of the acts are of school age and many of them had already performed for Lichfield Arts at Fuse, so the evening served as both a reunion event and an advert for this year’s festival.
The evening was started by talented guitarist Tom Morgan who performed a solo version of Amazing Grace, adding dextrous flourishes, elements of jazz harmony and live looping in a performance that bought out the full depth of this well known hymn, and the acoustic properties of St Mary’s Church.
The second performer was Cerys Curtis, playing ukulele, guitar and singing a set that encompassed songs by such names as Taylor Swift and Adele, as well as her own numbers.
Kodachrome, the winner of this year’s Battle of the Bands competition at The Friary School delivered a set that encompassed raucous rock and roll, pure pop and soul.
The highlights were a rocked up version of Marvin Gaye’s I Heard It Through The Grapevine and Duran Duran’s Hungry Like the Wolf. Their mature musicianship and on stage manner showed that they are a band to watch.
Plastic Fiction had the hard task of following that but lived up to the challenge, with Radiohead’s The Bends being particularly well performed.
Solo singer Holly Rolfe offered something slightly quieter, with a couple of her own songs as well as numbers from the musicals, before the three piece of Holly, Callum and Matt closed the night with their own material and an effective cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide.
An encore was provided with the trip being joined by Plastic Fiction for run through of The Arctic Monkeys’ I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor.
The evening was a successful showcase that even with much reduced funding for music tuition in schools, shows there are still many talented pupils taking every opportunity to play and perform.
