Ashley Cross, Poole
Sunday Featuring: Mother Ukers, The Outlaw Orchestra, Emma Hardy, The Party Shack & Jordan Watts
Sunday’s music starts exactly like Saturday with “Bitter Sweet Symphony”, this time it’s performed by Chris Payn’s Step-brother Jordan Watts, whose opening set is welcomed by much better dry weather conditions. Jordan like Chris knows how to entertain a festival audience and has a setlist full of Rock Star swagger and musical surprises. They include some beautifully executed Fleetwood Mac, with an impressive distinct Soprano-style vocal. His Grandmother has flown down from Scotland to see him perform and he has clearly upped his game to impress her. The audience gets treated to a wondrous medley of hits by Prince, along with a great version of The Cult classic “She’s Sells Sanctuary”.
Today is the debut gig of a brand new band to the local music scene, the band is somewhat of a supergroup featuring some well-known faces from the local scene. The band is called “The Party Shack” and their aim is to be on call to anyone who needs a quality wedding or party band. They feature Matt Black (Piano), Aaron O’Shea (Guitar), Danny Salamander (Vocals), Lizzi Helen (Vocals) Warren Bass (Bass), and Ilay Gibson (Drums). They have all found real chemistry with their combined musical abilities and from the start have the crowd on their side with a string of popular hits. These include “Crazy Little Thing Call Love”, The B52’s “Love Shack” and Primal Scream’s “Rocks”. Their Rock finale with Matt Black on vocals singing Van Halen’s “Jump” and Aaron O’Shea burning up his flying V guitar strings is certainly something to savour, along with a Bon Jovi medley that really got the crowd singing.
I’ll be honest, I was surprised to see the “Outlaw Orchestra” on the line-up as I felt them to be generally a niche band. I have seen them several times before and they are an awesome set of musicians who create some wonderful original music and have a great live atmosphere when they perform. Today though I felt that either the crowd did not get them or they had lost some of their sparkle. To be fair, much of their humour is X-rated and I’m sure that they toned this down for this family festival. They perform tracks like “Devil Woman”, “You should have Listened to Your Mama” featuring some wicked lap steel, and even a cover of John Lennon’s “Come Together”. However, they failed to connect with this Parkstone crowd, which is really disappointing.
Emma Hardy is a talented local singer/songwriter who with her two bandmates arrive onstage, sadly without her drummer (who was unable to make it) and gives the crowd exactly what they want. A selection of well-chosen covers that they can sing along to and either chair dance or dance on their picnic blankets. The Grooves crowd are treated to the Tic-Tock smash “Blinding Lights” by The Weekend, The Beatles “Eight Days a Week” and a Stirling cover of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” with the trio showing that despite being a man down they can put on a great show.
After a set of Cheesey wedding style hits from superstar DJ Allan Turner-Ward whipping up the audience, its time for this afternoons headliners are the ever popular “Mother Ukers”. Despite bassist Barnaby Wild going down with a dose of Ukular flu, Jonty Johnson and Luap Rekcut have teleported in a suitable stand-in Jed Green, who apparently is no relation to Grooves on The Green. The trio do what they do best; re-invent tracks from the past with the aid of just three Ukuleles, their voices and some futuristic Ukular magic. Today after being without live music for so long the crowd are so up for their set. The songs roll off the stage like a Wurlitzer jukebox with Blondie’s “Heart of Glass”, The Cure’s “Lovecats” and Happy Monday’s “Step On” all getting the full Ukular fusion treatment. Wait a minute, what have the guys being doing in lockdown? Listening to Justin Bieber (who? all the over 30’s shout) yes Justin Bieber that love him or hate him American outspoken pop star. They have learned to play one of his songs and apparently it sounds much better that the original….so some youngster in front of me said. The afternoon ended with a massive sing-along with “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”; with the crowd sounding like a drunken choir who were a bit tired, but they want to wring the last bit of fun out of their weekend.
So that’s it; “Grooves on The Green” for another year, we are so glad you are back and look forward to enjoying all you have to offer next year. Thank You to
Jan Crump (Landlady of The Bricklayers Arms) along with Hangover Hill’s team of Mel Berkhauer and Matt Black for all their fantastic organisation.
Videos
Links
https://www.groovesonthegreen.com
https://www.facebook.com/grooves.ashley.cross
Words, Pictures & Video by David Chinery
Pork Pies & words of wisdom by Tim ‘The Hat’ Heywood
60th (really!!) Birthday wishes to Lynn Bert (Mrs. Bert to her Rock Star Friends)
