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Astonbury 2009 - A Night of Surprises

The surprising thing about Astonbury is that it works. It delivers what the audience wants - and that is a fun night with some quite remarkable musical performances.

From where we started the changes have been phenomenal and the overall quality of the night is now truly wonderful. The way the stage looked when the night grew dark was magical and that was thanks to the back stage crew of Dave Lewis, Rod Rotherham and Phil Corrigan. The lighting system operated by Donnie Douglas made the whole thing look the biz. Of course the show would not work without sound and Phil Spooner, working in an ever increasing pool of sweat, managed to make every act sound special, with the help of the magificent sound system from our friends at Martin Audio.

All pictures on this page are by Janice Issett

Every time we do it the evening is full of surprises. Such as the 3 ageing festival bunnies who delayed the whole show by 15 minutes, as crew tried to drag them off the stage...

Nigel Palmer

The surprising fact is that musicians from outside the village are queuing up to appear and we already have a waiting list for next year. There was a sudden burst of jollity as ‘3 for Christ’ , the gospel team, caused yet another surprise with their sheer vivacity

There was a most excellent set from LightBox, a band we had first seen at the Limelight. Surely great things await them?

Our new talent of Jade and Nikita, who were quite remarkable and poised

Dennis and Co

Tony Rees took our breath away and performed the best set we had seen from him so far

The Chunkees

The Wongster

More surprises, the astonishing guitar dexterity of the Wongster as he played with Simon Gresswell in Chunkfunster, also the amount of time it took guitarists to tune up before they started their sets, and the fact that Dave Lewis, as stage manager managed to plug every one into the right connection.... eventually

Rachel Sutton

Rachel Sutton and her band Squid. They were on fire and produced the sort of performance you dream about

Another huge surprise and joy of the night was Hannah Brandon (left), singing a number with Rachel Sutton and Squid

Astonbury muscial director Neil Chesher (left) and John Whyte

The fact that the rain almost stayed away was the biggest surprise, and then there was the crowd response to ‘Hallelujah’ .... it was most unexpected to have a stage invasion and to have to elbow Bridget Brandon off the stage

It was a very special night , topped with fireworks courtesy of Lol Hinds. We have moved away from the original concept of a village talent based concert to a wider music festival, and it is getting bigger each year.

Will we do it again? Some say we should end on a high. Others say it is now a village tradition.

What we do know is that it requires other people to be involved. If you are interested in being involved in any aspect of Astonbury then make yourself known to us.

Our most special thanks to :

Nigel Meddemmen and Jerry Judd from Martin Audio
Digico Live Mixing Consoles
Donnie Douglas
All who helped setting up and on the day
...and eveybody who came and partied

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