Final day of the three day Music Festival at ‘The Avenue Public House’ Leigh, in aid of Bolton Mountain Rescue Team

Today saw the final day of the festival at The Avenue Pub, Leigh. Team members spent the morning completing our monthly vehicle and base maintenance day before Sam McKay, Diane Blakeley and Kris Kilshaw took BM4 down to The Avenue Pub to support the final days event. Sam’s daughter Molly again joined us. Mike O’Brien met us at The Avenue as the first band of the day commenced their set. The band the “Bright Spaces” was a three piece band from Horwich who we all greatly enjoyed.

Carly then joined our little group in time for the second band who was the rock band “Culprit”. The 6 piece band not only played a fantastic set which was enjoyed by all, but were also very supportive of the team and bought a stash of raffle tickets.

In between the bands we took turns selling raffle tickets all to raise money for the team. Whilst Sam and Diane were selling tickets they got chatting (no surprise there) to the third act “Jessica’s Ghost”. They chatted to the band, their families and friends who bought wrist bands and raffle tickets to support the team and were very interested in the work we do. The parents of the lead guitarist also told us all about the band and how good they were. We were not disappointed in their folk/rock music, before to long we were all tapping our feet to the music and clapping in time (okay maybe not in time). As the last song came on Sam and Diane could not resist doing a little jig and were soon joined by compare for the event “Greedy Jesus”, who whisked them both to the front of the stage. Luckily Mike had the keys for the landrover in case the girls needed oxygen.

The Avenue was a lot busier on the Sunday and the bands were extremely impressive especially when you remember they were all donating their services for free. So fourth act of the day was a young Glam Rock Band “Apriori”. As they set up their stage, we showed slight concern that we were sat so close to the stage and were about to be deafened. We were massively wrong they were great and we were really impressed.

The evening continued with the pub becoming extremely busy. During the early Sam and Diane swapped with David Cook, Lousie Jorgensen and Naomi Horan with the late evening crew making lots more raffle ticket sales whilst listening to some fantastic bands including Skive, The Skellion Gang’s, Mungo Parks, Beyond Recognition, Cujo and Love On Hold all helping to end the event on a great high.

The festival ended in the early hours of the morning (yes Mike was still there) with a total of £540 raised for Bolton Mountain Rescue Team. Again a massive thank you to all the bands for supporting the team, the customers who bought raffle tickets, Greedy Jesus for looking after all the bands and the staff at The Avenue. Further thanks go to Heybrook Music, Leigh who donated the raffle prize a guitar and amp worth £275. Last but no means least a big thank you to Shelley and Iain from The Avenue.