Glastonferry to host Bank Park festival for 5,000 indie fans

The Ferry Tavern's popular Glastonferry event has teamed up with the north west music promoters GS Promotions to launch the 5,000-capacity 'Glastonferry in the Park', a one-day tribute festival taking place on June 22.

Headliners The Clone Roses will be joined by Oas-is, The Smiths Ltd, 'Appy Mondays, The Courtbetweeners, The James Experience, The Verve Experience plus special guest DJs Clint Boon, of Inspiral Carpets fame, and compere Dave Sweetmore.

As one of the UK’s longest-running and most celebrated tributes, The Clone Roses – described by Mani as 'the second best Stone Roses in the world' – have spent the past two decades selling out venues nationwide with their renditions of Stone Roses classics.

Gav Scott, frontman and one of the promoters for Glastonferry in the Park, said: "About 18 months ago I had this idea of doing something in St Helens, our hometown, for the Clone Roses’ 20th celebration.

"I knew Andy Mulholland from Glastonferry well so I asked if he'd get involved and we organised the first 'Clonefest' last year.

"That was really successful – we had about 4,000 people – but for year two we didn't want it to be Clone Roses and a Manchester theme again because we didn't want it to become repetitive.

"At the same time we felt that the Manchester theme worked well so after a lot of thought we decided to do a Glastonferry special in Warrington."

Oas-is

The regular Glastonferry in Penketh will take a break in July so Gav and Andy can concentrate on the Bank Park festival but the event will continue as normal after that.

Gav, 39, added: "Glastonferry at the pub is such a great day with good bands in a good location that it sells out in minutes now. So we want to put on an event in Bank Park reflects that.

"We can’t wait for it. Hopefully the sun will be out and everybody will be in great spirits. We've got Clint Boon DJing and all these great bands.

Clint Boon

"I think the original Glastonferry has been a success thanks to Andy’s attention to detail to make sure it is a good experience. I think people have cottoned on to the fact he really cares."

Gav, a music promoter who is also currently working on Bruce Foxton's From The Jam tour, considers Warrington a 'second home'.

He said: "We played one of the first Glastonferry festivals more than 10 years ago and I’ve been friends with Andy since. I think we’ve played it three times and we’ve played Parr Hall a number of times which has always been a good gig.

'Appy Mondays

"We’ve got a good following in Warrington now. When we first played the Parr Hall it was quite an emotional gig because for years, we’d be going to gigs there watching Cast, Charlatans and Shed Seven and so playing on that stage was an amazing thing for us.

"Although we’re from St Helens and have a bit of banter about the rugby we’ve almost felt like Warrington has been a second home for us."

In fact, Gav told Weekend his best gig with the Clone Roses was performing at the Parr Hall just days after the Stone Roses played their first reunion gig at the venue in 2012.

He added: “Even though we weren’t the Roses everybody was so up for it and people were in the crowd with their wristbands on from a few nights before. Even on Shane Meadows’ Made of Stone film about the reunion you can see our posters in the background.

The Courtbetweeners

“I remember speaking to Chris at Parr Hall and he said the people involved with the Roses decided to do it that week so the band could rehearse at the Parr Hall and have a great cover story by saying it was us if people overheard them.”

So is it weird potentially playing to five times as many Roses fans at Glastonferry in the Park as Ian Brown did last time he was at the 1,000-capacity Parr Hall?

Gav said: “Well the amount of people who would have liked to have gone to that gig is probably near on 100,000.

“It’s a bit weird and with Ian living in Lymm that’s an added element to it. It’s a strange feeling. I’ve met Mani because he has DJed with us a couple of times but I’ve not met Ian. You always read about people in the north west who have bumped into Ian but, for somebody who has impersonated him for 20 years I’ve never met him.

“Being in a tribute band is a bit weird. For example my brother is the guitarist in our band but he is also a teacher. So for him Monday to Friday he’s a teacher and then at evenings and weekends he gets changed and becomes John Squire to thousands of people...”

Tickets for Glastonferry in the Park will go on sale at 10am on Saturday, February 2. Visit parrhall.culturewarrington.org or call 442345. A limited number of early bird tickets costing £25 are available.