The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Grimethorpe Colliery Band
Perth Theatre, May 19
The Grimethorpe Colliery Band have something in common with their younger colleagues in brass, the Hackney Colliery Band. Neither band actually represents a colliery.
There was never a Hackney Colliery although up until 1992, when the last coal was cut in Grimethorpe – famed as the setting for hit film Brassed Off! – mining had provided the South Yorkshire town’s heartbeat for generations.
The band was first formed as a leisure pursuit for colliery workers and, even in 1992,17 band members still had jobs there.
The Grimethorpe Colliery Band provided the soundtrack for the film, a proud achievement in a 101 year history that has been consistently eventful.
Its successes in the brass band world include winning 16 Brass In Concert Championship titles, 11 Yorkshire Regional Championships, two English National Championships, four British Open Championships and four National Champion Brass Band of Great Britain titles.
Grimethorpe’s diverse performances have also seen the band play the FIFA World Cup finals in Paris, the BBC Proms, the Eurovision Song Contest and the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony.
There have been countless national and international television and radio appearances and two gold discs for album sales, as well as a Bafta nomination for its contribution to Brassed Off!
Following a 21st anniversary screening of the film at the Royal Albert Hall last year, the band came to mass media prominence again with manager Paul Smith giving interviews on Radio 2 and Radio 5 Live, Good Morning Britain, none of which is seen as brass band central.
“The love for the film is amazing — and the roar that greeted us as we walked on to the Royal Albert Hall stage that night was staggering,” says Smith. “That reception will live with the band forever.”
Even allowing for playing to international television audiences in the millions at Eurovision, for Smith perhaps the best spin-off from Brassed Off! were the tours that followed of Japan and Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
“The band has also recently become the first ever brass band to become an ensemble-in-residence at the Royal College of Music in London, which is an amazing accolade,” he says.
For their Perth Festival of the Arts concert in Perth Concert Hall the band will present some of the pieces with which they have become synonymous. Rossini’s William Tell Overture and Rodrigo’s Concerto de Orange Juice, as it’s become known, are likely to feature.
The band has a huge repertoire and anything from Elgar to Bar bra Streisand, MacArthur Park to Ol’ Man River might also get the Grimethorpe treatment.
www.grimethorpeband.co.uk