The recent Bandamonium brass band day in Devon inspired by the famous Whit Friday contest in Saddleworth and Tameside, has been hailed as a fantastic success.

Five bands had a great afternoon in Hatherleigh with the event seeing the ensembles perform at local pubs on their routes with plenty of fantastic music and fun (as well as few drinks) added to the mix.

Meeting up

Organiser Tim Williams told 4BR: "The concept was to get all the bands to the pubs throughout the afternoon, with everyone meeting up in Hatherleigh for a massed bands at the end of the day."

One of the featured bands was the scratch outfit, 'The Bandamonium Barbarians' which was made up of players from London Metropolitan, Tiverton, Crediton, Newquay, Northlew, Exeter Railway and some mysterious villages in Cornwall!

They were joined by SW Comms, Okehampton, Pendennis Brass and Hatherleigh, with the musical standard maintained throughout despite the generous uptake of well-deserved liquid refreshments.

Brilliant

Tim said: "The music making was great even with the scratch band that played its first note together on the day. The atmosphere was brilliant and so was the support — with Black Dyke signing a Bandamonium t-shirt as a raffle prize."

He added: "Hatherleigh started in uniform but by the third pub were in Bandamonium t-shirts and both Okehampton and Pendennis Brass from Falmouth truly embraced the spirit by picking up the 'People's Choice' and 'Best Bandamonium Band' prizes respectively.

They really had fun, dressing up and choosing crowd favourites with Pendennis even having song sheets for the crowds."

At the end of a great day all the players were ferried back to Hatherleigh for the massed band event, where they performed the classic march, 'Slaidburn', the hymn tune, 'Abide with Me' and 'The Floral Dance'.

Next year

Tim concluded: "The hymn brought people to tears, in a good way with nearly 100 brass players from over 11 bands in total playing together. We will now build on this and return next year so that the area can enjoy a very special day of brass band entertainment."