Written by Head of Music, Mr Masheder

We had 4 bands performing at RigFest, an outdoor music event at St John Rigby on Saturday.

It was a beautiful day for a festival with lots of sun, some welcome cloud cover and a strong breeze at times. It was the best turnout I've ever seen in 10 years of attending, with non-stop music from 11am - 4.30pm.

Our Y10 band "The Nutters" were the first of our 4 bands to take the stage. They started their set with “Heavyweight Champion of the World” with Tobias Atkinson laying down a strong drum beat. Unfortunately, there were a few technical issues with the PA rig and no sound from electric instruments. This led to the band having to stop and wait for the technical issues to be rectified. They didn't let this put them off, they stayed calm and restarted. This time Noah Mannion's bass line layered up with the drum beat and Zac Fletcher commanded the stage singing the verse in his lower register. As they struck the chorus, Ethan Sharpe and Myles Daly entered with a powerful but clean guitar riff as Zac moved his vocals up a notch. Their second song was Supersonic, again started by Tobias on the kit. Myles encountered some technical issues with his guitar, which is part and parcel of live performance. The intermittent sound was caused by a rogue jack lead which was replaced in time for the final chorus and Myles big distorted guitar solo at the end of the song. Again, despite the issues Myles continued playing and showed great resilience.

Next up was "The Phantoms" starting their set with “Sky Full of Stars”. Matthew Simmons had to make a last-minute alteration as the keyboard didn't have the same patches that he had practiced with so remained on a piano sound with his opening riff that underpins the whole song. Harriet McKenna added some depth on the bass guitar as Maria Kennedy on electric guitar and Daniel Hember on saxophone doubled down on the main riff. Lucy Stafford provides the vocals over the top of the band with Dina Clarke keeping time on the drum kit. Daniel Bird showed some excellent technical guitar playing in true Jonny Buckland fashion. The second song was Seven Nation Army with Harriet starting the main riff on bass. A few guitar tuning issues impacted the performance, but the band once again showed great maturity and kept going. 

EXITWAVE immediately followed on the adjacent 'Main Stage'. This was their second time performing at RigFest and what a difference a year makes! They played a 4-song set, opening with “This Love”. Another last-minute change with JP Togher playing the opening riff on guitar to save moving the piano over from the 2nd stage. Auguste Mieliauskaite provided a solid bassline throughout the whole set on her pink bass (refer to photo). Tiana Olejnikova provided a complementing guitar part working well with JP creating chordal and harmonic layers. William Gambles fascinated and wowed the crowd with a performance on the kit way beyond his years. The band was fronted by Hollie Palmer taking centre stage as lead singer with her note perfect, strong and stylistic vocal delivery. Take it Easy, Naive and Hypersonic Missile were the other songs performed during the set. 

Warning Signs were the last of our bands to take the stage. They started their set with “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” with Jamie Miller opening with the chordal piano riff. Matthew Maguire on drum kit and Mason Wood on bass then entered along with Lucy Hunt on electric guitar. Sophie Donnelan fronted the band, again started to show her true potential as the lead singer and focal point. Nicola Ogorek played a distorted guitar riff in dialogue with Sophie at times, added additional textural layers in the chorus and provided the guitar solo. The band closed with the classic Teenage Dirtbag that really got the crowd going!

 

Past pupils provided some huge performances with Jake Hickson's band The Cove playing a set, and the headliners Everyman (formed by Nathaniel Maddock and Henry Hill) returning from their festival debut at the Isle of White festival last weekend.

I'm so proud of all our pupils involved, their commitment, determination, passion and resilience. They showed the very best of St Edmund Arrowsmith!

If you teach them give them a big well done and a pat on the back. They not only survived the heatwave last week but had to endure a 6-day week!!

Rigfest