Much loved Sunderland musician Keith Gregson reports from the audience of the Music against Child Poverty Live concert held at Sunderland’s Fire Station – 08 December 2024
Where to start? Best perhaps to repeat an observation made on numerous occasions on the evening itself – that this was simply ‘the finest and most successful charity show that Sunderland has ever seen’. Flagged up as ‘Music against Child Poverty Live’, the show’s main aim was to raise a significant amount of money for Hendon-based charity ‘Love, Amelia’. Founded by Steph Archbold after a tragic personal loss, the charity has a single stated aim – to provide essential items ‘no child should be without’ so that those in need can be ‘safe, happy’ and able to ‘strive’. In order to facilitate this, the charity collects pre-loved items and distributes them to youngsters aged from 0 to 18. Across the evening, the value of the charity’s contribution to Wearside life was accentuated by a series of videos and speeches.
The Show
The list of participants encompasses the good and great of North Eastern contemporary music including Field Music, The Futureheads, Paul Smith of Maximo Park, Marty ‘The Lake Poets’ Longstaff, Liz Corney of The Cornshed Sisters, Frankie and The Heartstrings, Ian Black of Slug, the Stockton Road Hit Squad, Nadedja, Chat and the Young Musicians Project, and Ruth-Ann Boyle of trip-hop group Olive. Also involved were popular former BBC presenter Jeff Brown, Isabel Maria, Becky Young and Lottie Willis. As with the charity supported, the evening had a simple aim. This was to celebrate the work of the ‘good and great’ of global music with studied covers. Thus we were able to spend the evening with Paul Young, George Michael, Bryan Adams, Paul McCartney, Madonna, David Bowie and Bob Geldof among others.
It was quite a night with every act applauded enthusiastically and many performances accompanied by dancing in the aisles. Sadly in a brief report such as this it is impossible to cover every performance although certain features are worth recording. Throughout the show the backing band of the Brewis brothers, Marty Longstaff and Liz Corney supported a huge variety of songs seamlessly. Liz also deserves a special mention for her powerful cover of Elton John songs. Liz is best known for performances with Field Music and the Cornshed Sisters but on this occasion was able to show us her capability as a powerful solo artist. The Futureheads appearance as Queen is also worthy of a particular mention. Jaff was in his element as Freddie Mercury, strutting his stuff to the amusement and appreciation of the packed venue while Barry’s nailing of the guitar solo of Bohemian Rhapsody was noted with great enthusiasm. However (and appropriately in terms of the aims of the evening) the star of the show was a youngster – 11 year old Isaac, a drummer from the Bunker project, who made a guest appearance with the Hit Squad and showed us the way to the future.
How do we judge success? In two ways perhaps – by noting the huge smiles on the faces of the packed audience at the end of the evening and by acknowledging the cheque of over £50,000 as it headed its way to ‘Love, Amelia’.
