On Saturday October 4th, our much anticipated milestone concert day finally arrived, and what a fantastic day and sensational concert everyone enjoyed. Well over a year in the planning, we invited as many former Eagley Band members as possible to come and play in a massed “reunion” band together with the current band, our Community Band and Community Choir. Our MD Chris had booked virtuoso Trumpet star Mike Lovatt to come up from London the previous November and had posted out all of the reunion concert music to every returning player many weeks in advance, we invited the Lord-Lieutenant of Greater Manchester Mrs Diane Hawkins and her husband, The Mayor and Mayoress of Bolton, Councillor David Chadwick and his wife, former Mayor of Bolton Councillor John Walsh and his wife accompanied the Lord-Lieutenant, we commissioned a 24 page, souvenir brochure to give to every performer containing pages and pages of Eagley Band photographs through the ages, and the whole day was one of great music making, lots of humour, wonderful conversations, nostalgia, catching up with people many of us had not seen for decades, or even at all.

The morning of the concert began in truly atrocious weather, with battering winds and torrential rain as the huge concert day van was loaded up with everything from Timpani and extensive percussion to music stands, banners, mutes, programmes, boxes of CDs, all of the usual. The afternoon rehearsal on stage was scheduled for a 1pm start and began perfectly on time, with Mike Lovatt due to arrive after 3pm to rehearse his two first half and two second half solos plus encore, and everything went perfectly to plan from start to finish. From the very first notes of the Shostakovich Festive Overture at 1pm it was clear that the superb tuning and standard of the day were going to be exceptional, and that proved to be the case through to the end of the concert. The massed band comprising 2 Soprano Cornets and 8 Solo Cornets across to 4 Euphoniums, 7 Basses and 5 equally outstanding percussionists sounded superb in every piece, and backed all of Mike Lovatt’s solos superbly, from Cry Me A River arranged by our MD to the quiet ballads and sensational MacArthur Park highlight.

With the afternoon rehearsal winding up as planned at 4.30pm it was time for a free buffet laid on for everyone who wished to stay through with Chris to the concert, and by 7.30pm our audience of many hundreds and distinguished VIP guests had all arrived safely in spite of the day’s appalling weather until around tea time.

By the end of the evening, everyone performing and everyone listening had enjoyed a truly memorable and fantastic evening of music and experienced the wizardry of an exceptional soloist in Mike Lovatt, who juxtaposed the pyrotechnics and volume of MacArthur Park with the shortest, most quiet encore of Chinatown taken from the opening credits of the 1974 film starring Jack Nicholson.

As audience members left the hall they were able to meet and greet Mike in the foyer and have him autograph their programmes and his new CDs as they disappeared home at the end of a brilliant evening and a brilliant day. Many of Eagley’s former members who had come to play had travelled hundreds of miles from just about every county in the country, and at considerable personal cost, but nobody regretted their decision at all. 

May we say the biggest thank you to everyone who made our 175th anniversary concert the special occasion that it undoubtedly was.