Little music fest proves a big hit

ALMOST a thousand people came along to the first ever Little Glastonboro music festival.

There were 10 different acts at Littleborough Cricket Club, with a mix of tribute bands, up-andcoming artists and local groups keeping the crowds entertained.

Teacher Ben Wright said he came up with the idea while on his summer holidays last year.

The 29-year-old said: “We were just sat at the cricket club one day last

summer and we thought wouldn’t it be great to do a festival?

“Littleborough is like a lot of areas in Rochdale. It’s got quite a good community and we already have the food festival and the Rushbearing festival which are brilliant.

“They are all ridiculously well supported events but we just didn’t have a music festival.

“We probably have more local bands and groups than almost anywhere else in the country.

“It just snowballed from there.”

It took over 12 months of work from Ben and others to get things organised and they were delighted when almost 1,000 people showed up on Saturday, July 20 for the event.

The Freddie and Queen Experience headlined the main stage, playing the music of one of Britain’s most beloved bands, and there were also performances from the Oasis Experience, country/ blues singer Katie O’Malley and a brass band made of local primary school children.

There were two stages in total and a food village made up of businesses from across Rochdale borough.

A maths teacher at Wardle Academy, Ben also plays euphonium in the German Oompah group the Jäger Maestros who performed as well.

He added that they normally include a lot of Queen songs in their cheesy pop covers but had to make a change knowing that the Freddie and Queen Experience were up next.

“It’s a bit of a comedown now that it’s all over,” he said.

“On Friday night setting up in the torrential rain it was a bit of a nightmare. It was hard work but quite exciting.

“When the sun came out on Saturday and the rain finally stopped it was just perfect.”

Next year promises to be ‘bigger and better’ and the organisers want to hear from visitors as to what they should include at info@littleglastonboro. co.uk.