When I was the Guardian’s Berlin correspondent back in 2011, I had a private rule: I was going to write about the Nazis no more than once a fortnight. Early on, I made the mistake of telling this to a reporter from the Berliner Zeitung. She outed me in an article under the headline: “Zwei Wochen Ohne Hitler”.
In two and a half years as the Guardian’s northern editor, I have also made a conscious effort not to write too much about certain things. Pies, flat caps, mills, whippets – even though Alex and Pam round the corner just got one called Gilbert and he’s a darling.
Until last week I probably would have filed brass bands in the same drawer of last resort. Then I went to Whit Friday in Saddleworth and realised that a stirring euphonium solo is as relevant to my patch as George Osborne’s northern powerhouse will ever be.
As a coastal Lancastrian, I had not heard of Whit Friday. We don’t really do brass bands in Morecambe. No pits – just two hulking nuclear power stations. Subtitled “the greatest free show on Earth”, Whit Friday is like South By SouthWest for brass bands, only spread out over 11 villages on the Lancashire/Yorkshire border, rather than the dive bars of Austin, Texas. As with SXSW, you can’t hope to see all of the bands on the bill, just as you’ll struggle to visit every venue. Most of the ensembles don’t even make it to each village, which are sufficiently spread out that coaches are needed to ferry the groups up hill and down dale – a low-geared bicycle, incidentally, is the best way to get around Whit Friday (admittedly difficult when carrying a tuba).
Going since 1884, Whit Friday this year attracted 126 bands from all around the UK, as well as a few from afar. Each must dash from contest to contest, performing one crowd-pleaser as they march through each village and then one brass classic for the judges. Each performance is scored “blind” by an adjudicator, hidden in some adjacent darkened room or caravan. It’s a Pennine version of The Voice, but without the annoying bit where will.i.am turns round and uses lots of non sequiturs to explain why that massacre of Vanessa Carlton’s Thousand Miles wasn’t quite for him.
In the contest we attended in Delph, the mysterious judge was sequestered inside the Methodist hall, opposite the working men’s club. From 4.30pm until well after dark, he judged 77 bands from an open window on the first floor, each introduced to him with just a number rather than a name. For the audience’s benefit, before each performance a solemn chap in a hi-vis jacket paraded around with a white board on a stick on which was written the band’s name, their division in the league, and the march they were to play. “Brass Band Frutigen – Salute to Berne. 3rd” and so forth.
Occupying plastic seats on the front row were the unofficial citizens’ jury, who, fortified with Tupperware picnics and flasks of tea, dutifully scored each band by their own individual criteria. After about 10 bands and several pints of local ale, my friend Elizabeth and I felt confident we could tell the wheat from the chaff. Growing up in nearby Milnrow, Elizabeth had the edge on this seaside incomer, whispering that the Brighouse and Rastrick band were said to be one of the best, when they struck up a fabulously regal version of The Wizard. Her grandad, however, always preferred the “Faireys”, she said. Grandad, too ill in hospital to attend this year, was proved right when the Fairey Band from Stockport eventually won the overall first place, shoving Brighouse into second.
But Whit Friday is not just a chance for the big guns to fire out their hits; it’s an opportunity for anyone who can get enough players together. We enjoyed the Chav Band (don’t tell Owen Jones), resplendent in tracksuits and baseball hats, who made me punch the air with their rendition of Bryan Adam’s 1984 classic Heaven. They also do a corking version of 2 Unlimited’s No Limit. One band, whose lederhosen-wearing euphonium player had filled his pockets with cans of beer, had brought with them their own Bez-style dancer, a very drunk Jesus carrying a sign saying “He’s not the Messiah … he’s a very naughty boy”. A shout-out too for the equally well lubricated Zoobander, comprising a load of mullered students from Warwick wearing animal-themed onesies, who chose The Animals Went in Two by Two (hurrah hurrah) as their rabble-raiser.
Both of us spent half the evening on the verge of tears. There’s something about a searing cornet solo in B flat that causes my chest to heave. For Elizabeth it was the teenage lad banging his bass drum with enormous pride as he provided the rhythm for his youth band’s take on Uptown Funk while strutting down Delph’s main thoroughfare. I had wondered if Whit Friday would feel like an anachronism, preserved for the sake of tradition rather than any relevance to 21st-century life, like the “coconutters” of nearby Bacup, who blacken their faces for their annual morris dancing parade. But it was my favourite night of the year, a demonstration of civic pride and community spirit as much as musical talent. I have spent the last few days welling up at my desk watching YouTube clips – the Brighouse band collaborating with the north-east folk band the Unthanks is a particular favourite, along with the Whit Friday sequence in Brassed Off. Next year, I want in. How long does it take to learn the trombone?
View all comments >