Guitar Concert

Below are photos from the concert we held on the 4th December 2004 at Down Thomas Village Hall. It was a chance for all my students to have a go at performing on stage, both solo, and live with a band.

2 months of practice by all the performers culminated in one day. We had just 3 hours in the afternoon to get the band songs together. Having each practiced our parts seperately over the months, we were brought together with drummer John Benney with just 15 minutes to practice each piece.

An audience of 60 family, friends, and local music enthusiasts gathered to watch the evening performance.

Amy's Band

Amy opened the show with Robbie Williams' 'Let Me Entertain You'. She was joined on stage by Freddie on bass guitar and Abigail on guitar.

Abigail and Freddie's Band

Abigail and Freddie played Atomic Kitten's 'The Tide Is High', with Amy on vocals.

Roger's Band

Roger played 'Love Is Only A Feeling' by The Darkness. Roger is 9 and has been playing for just 6 months.

Sam's Band

Sam played and sang 'If I Had A Million Dollars'. The previous night he had been to London to watch the Bare Naked Ladies live where they performed this song. Talk about doing you homework! Sam then started of the solo and duet performance, playing the James Bond Theme Tune and Drunken Sailor.

Amy

Amy played Atomin Kitten's 'Whole Again' with very strong vocals also.

Abigail and Freddie

Abigail and Freddie played their own duet arrangement of the Match of The Day theme tune.

Roger

Roger played Malaguena solo and a duet of the Mission Impossible theme tune

David

David started playing when he was 6 and played live for the first time this evening, only 7 years old. He played and sang 'Drunken Sailor' which received huge applause.

Lucy

David's Mum, Lucy, had a tough act to follow, having taken a little longer to reach her first ever live performance. She played and sang a number of fingersyle guitar songs, finishing with Norah Jones' 'Don't Know Why'.

Andrew

Andrew is also an accomplished player who suprised us all, including himself, with a fabulous first time live performance of some fingerstyle Irish Folk Songs.

Ollie

Ollie played 'Under the Bridge' by the Red Hot Chillie Peppers, before going up on stage to perform his band piece. This was a spectacular, technical performance of Cream's 'Sunshine Of Your Love'. He played the Eric Clapton guitar solo perfectly.

Ashley

Ashley overcame great nerves to play a varied set of David Bowie's 'Space Oddity', a duet of 'Puff The Magic Dragon', and a fabulous rendition of 'Love Me Tender'.

Damian

Damian played The Beatles' 'Black Bird' and also 'Spanish Ballad' which had been a tricky song for him, but on the night he played it perfectly and even added some extra fills!

Gary

Gary played REM's 'Everybody Hurts'. Not even my accompanying singing could put him off as he played it perfectly with nerves of steel.

Andy

I put myself through it to, picking some challenging pieces and fluffing every piece apart from John Lennon's 'Imagine'.

Clocks

This was a show piece attempt that pretty much came off. Gary, Ollie, Damian and myself all played guitar to create a dazzling sound, we just couldn't decide how to finish at the same time!

Gary's Band

Gary played Eric Clapton's 'Wonderful Tonight'. This was a beautiful song to play and was held together by our star drummer for the night, John Benney.

At the end of the evening, we were treated to a performance from the Holbeton All Saint's Church Handbell Group. This was a really special performance from the group to which Amy belongs. Unfortunately the batteries ran out on my camera. If anyone has photos of this the please email me.

The evening finished with a guitar ensemble performing several Christmas Songs with everone singing along. Mince Pies and Mulled Wine added to the Christmas Cheer.

Thankyou to everyone who helped, particularly all the performers who did extremely well. The evening was a huge succeess and I hope to hold another concert in August 2005.