After a few hiccups getting in, this was another brilliant day out provided by Let’s Rock Shrewsbury
Sadly I missed Altered Images and Kim Appleby but just made it in time for Jason Donovan, performing his hits ‘Nothing Can Divide Us‘, ‘Too Many Broken Hearts‘, ‘Any Dream Will Do‘ and the absolutely epic ‘Especially For You‘. Its hard to imagine now how big that song was in the 80s.
His voice and humour are just as I remember him, it was brilliant to see him live.
Following him was eXTC, I wasnt really familiar with their tunes but when they played ‘Making Plans For Nigel‘ a few memories came back. They were great to listen to, obviously not an original line up but excellent.
I’d never seen Go West live and was really looking forward to hearing their hits. Songs such as ‘King of Wishful Thinking‘, ‘Don’t Look Down‘ and my favourite ‘We Close Our Eyes‘ were performed with perfection,
Peter Cox has possibly one of the best live voices in the business. It was a stunning performance and I cant wait to see them again.
When I was at school, Nik Kershaw was on all my then Girlfriends ( for a little while ) exercise books at school, she was besotted with him, sadly she isn’t with us anymore so brought back some nice long lost memories. He had a brilliant back catalogue to play including ‘Wouldnt It Be Good‘, ‘I Wont Let The Sun Go Down On Me‘, ‘When a Heart Beats‘ and my all time favourite ‘The Riddle‘.
I had absolutely no idea that he wrote ‘The One And Only‘, so when he played that it was a pleasant surprise.
Next up were From The Jam, again I’d never seen these before and was curious. They were very good, I was sat chilling to Jam favourites such as ‘Going Underground’, ‘A Town Called Malice’ and ‘Eton Rifles’. Sometimes when bands lose their Frontman they must go on and I’m glad From The Jam have done that.
I am 100% going to see them again, as well as Paul Weller too.
Martin Kemp? I love Spandau Ballet and I really wasnt sure what to expect from a DJ set so I took my pics and went for a sit. Unsurprisingly he was brilliant with the crowd, had them bouncing as he played Pop Hit after Hit, it want Spandau but very entertaining just the same.
Inbetween the main acts were some great entertainers, Jenny Powell was presenting the whole day and she is so funny. I was actually picked on by her ‘are you the Daily Mail?’, hell no but it made my day.
Black Lace and Peter Coyle also did a some medleys inbetween acts. Seeing thousands of people enjoying the cheese of Agadoo was brilliant, I miss the 80s.
All that remained were Bananarama and Squeeze. I’d never seen Bananarama before and apart from a few sound probs they were fantastic, my favourite by them ‘Cruel Summer’ was played early on while I was shooting them which made it a bit special for me.
Squeeze arent really my thing so after a few songs by them I headed to the station to head home to Manchester.
Yet again Shrewsbury has brought me joy and wonderful memories, from the lady I was sat with in VIP to the very friendly atmosphere of the massive crowd there.
Thank You Again
Philip Goddard
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