IT'S been more than 20 years since V Festival was launched at Victoria Park in 1996.

Seeing Supergrass, Cast and Pulp in their heyday is etched in the minds of thousands of Warrington music fans – but Starsailor's Ben Byrne is not among them.

The drummer and former St Oswald’s Primary School pupil missed out because he was working at Bargain Booze at the time and couldn't wrangle the time off.

Ben said: "So many of my friends went but I was working that day. All these people were getting cases of ale to go to the festival so I was pretty jealous. But I grew up in Kingsway North so I could hear the festival from my house when I got back."

You could say Ben is making up for it this year. Neighbourhood is the first music festival to be held on the site since V96 and Starsailor will be sharing a stage with the likes of Courteeners and Jake Bugg on Saturday.

Ben will also be heading back on Sunday as a fan to see Noel Gallagher and Blossoms among many others.

He added: "It’s a real sterling line-up so to be on a bill with them in our home town is an honour really. I think it’s really good for the town as well. Hopefully if it’s a success it will become a yearly thing.

"They did that pre-sale for Warrington residents so I’ve got quite a lot of friends who are going. Blossoms seem like they’re on a bit of a rollercoaster at the moment.

"They’re nice lads. They supported us for that Christmas show we did at the Parr Hall. I’ve never seen Noel Gallagher so I’m quite looking forward to that because I like his solo stuff."

Ben may have not been at V Festival but 1996 is etched in his mind for another reason.

It was the year that best mates Ben and bassist James 'Stel' Stelfox met James Walsh at Wigan and Leigh College and their path to stardom was paved.

Back then they called their band Waterface, a reference to Neil Young's album, Tonight's the Night.

Ben said: "It was around the time we’d just started. James came to college that year and that’s where we met."

Barry Westhead completed the line-up on keyboard in 2000 and in the same year they got signed to EMI Records and changed their name to Starsailor.

Ben added: "We had this showcase in London and we didn’t have a name. So when we were down at Heavenly, which was our management at the time, a guy called Martin Kelly said to James what are you listening to at the moment? He said: 'A lot of Tim Buckley'.

"That led to them coming up with the name Starsailor – a reference to the Tim Buckley album – on the spot."

There's been a lot of water under the bridge since then. After four albums, including Love Is Here and Silence is Easy, which both peaked at number two in the charts, the band went their separate ways.

They reformed in 2014 and released their first album in eight years – All This Life – in 2017.

Ben, who worked with Rolling Stones' Ronnie Wood on Starsailor's fourth record, All The Plans, said: "The more that time went on the more I thought: 'Will it ever happen?'

"But when we came back in 2014 the shows and festival sets were received so well that we realised we still had a good fanbase out there. We still get on really well and what helps is we all have our own projects outside of the band.

"I still do teaching at Presto Music School and from home. It’s funny, if you teach teenagers they might have not heard of the band but their parents will often say they listened to us back in the day."

Ben also cannot thank fans enough for sticking with the band following the success of All This Life.

He added: "We were really pleased because we charted at number 23 and that was purely on the back of the fanbase and word of mouth.

"Obviously you don’t get a lot of the big TV shows and it’s so difficult now to get radio play.

"Absolute played us a little bit but it’s so difficult to break through. We had good reviews which was really pleasing and the tour sold well. That’s all you can ask for really.

"The most important thing for me was I thought we made a really great record that I was proud of."

Starsailor worked with Rick McNamara from Embrace on the record which proved to be a very fruitful partnership.

Ben said: "We’re possibly thinking of doing some new material later in the year. We had a really good chemistry with Rick so we probably wouldn’t think twice about working with him again."

Starsailor play the Second Stage on Saturday at Neighbourhood Weekender.