MUSIC
THE GUITAR SHOW New Bingley Hall, Birmingham
I woke up significantly earlier on the Sunday morning to make it to the school for 07:30 (the time of which we were leaving for the showcase). However, it wasn’t an issue because I was in anticipation for the event as I have never attended a guitar showcase before and was interested to see what kinds of things I would see/do.
The journey itself I knew was going to be excruciatingly long, but by listening to a bit of music the time soon passed by and before I knew it we had arrived in Birmingham. On arrival of the venue for the showcase, I found that getting inside was a lot quicker and easier than expected. There were two different queues and coincidentally we were able to just walk straight in via the empty one which was great.
When walking into the entrance room the sounds of many different guitars was evident and I could hear a variety of different sounds and styles all overlapping and echoing around the main room and out into the entrance area.
After a quick talk about when to meet back up for lunch, we were able to go off into groups and go our separate ways around the venue.
Instantly I was overwhelmed by the size of and noise created in the showcase. There were rows of stalls that continued down for what seemed like an eternity when stood looking from the front. The first stand that definitely stood out for me was Marshall as it is globally recognised as one of the best primarily guitar amp selling organisations.
I wasn’t really sure where to start so we kind of auto-piloted around the venue for roughly an hour in which we picked up various freebees including a t-shirt (which I was very impressed with) and seen a variety of different guitars of many prices, shapes and sizes. I was honestly so impressed when walking around the venue because of the sheer amount of people who turned up to sell, to buy or just to see what it was like. It almost made me want to buy a guitar myself, regardless of some the price tags!
Over the course of the early afternoon, there was various artists and demonstrations in a back room of the venue such as a local singer/songwriter Ed Geater and a Marshall employee who was showing off the sounds of two different Marshall amps. Personally, my favourite artist was Ed because he used a looping pedal and beat boxed to create rhythms for his songs and then built up on top of them with his guitar and voice. In fact, after his performances, I bought a copy of both of his albums and we listened to them on the way back on the minibus.
We left the venue at about 1:30 in the afternoon and we arrived back home a little earlier than expected. If I was to give a summary of the event I would say it is a guitarists heaven and for someone who doesn’t play guitar such as myself it still seemed incredible to attend and I believe more trips similar to this one should be held in the future.
By Charlie Loveridge
www.matravers.wilts.sch.uk
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