Columnist Lee Harman, a former Woolston High School student, runs the website and live platform Warrington Music [WAM]. This month he talks about Warrington Music Festival and why the event at Golden Square in May provides a vital platform for emerging talent when 22 bands and artists will get their moment in the spotlight.

ALL 22 of the emerging bands and artists appearing on the second day of Warrington Music Festival have now been revealed.

The likes of The Winachi Tribe, Serratone and Edits will take to the Old Market Place stage just a day after Shaun Ryder’s Black Grape, The Farm and Fez in what is bound to be an unmissable weekend of live music in the town on May 4 and 5.

What is fantastic to see is how the festival is truly marking a new generation of bands coming through.

Many of the artists like The Lotts, Crawlers and La Scale will be making their debut at a festival.

And it must feel particularly surreal for Kula Bay who until only recently were students at Priestley College and now they’re second from the top of the bill on the Sunday.

It’s important that the bands who are out performing shows throughout the year are recognised and it’s a great opportunity for them to support each other.

The sets might only be 20 minutes’ long, but to many bands, this can be among their favourite performances.

Now that the scramble for Black Grape tickets has ended (see you there if you got some), I encourage anyone who has an interest in live music to head to the Old Market Place to see how absolutely amazing my town’s artists are on the second day when no ticket is required.

Festival weekend is always a crazy time for Warrington Music [WAM] and we hope to do more than we have ever done to cover the event.

Fingers crossed we can source ourselves a pop-up studio where we can sit down with the bands and work on some great content.

In my previous column I put out a big thank you to everyone who helped us out with [WAM] Festival in March.

Northwich Guardian:

Selling out venues featuring some of our best bands was great to see and with each show being streamed live, we broadcast the town across the world.

With the festival struggling to break even after costs, I’m not sure what the future holds but the imminent opening of Live bar in Barbauld Street means there should be lots of events to enjoy in the meantime.

The fact it opens on the same weekend Old Town House closes, however, isn’t lost on me.

Best of luck Jen and Gazz (‘I’m not cryin’, you’re cryin’!’).

Their final show this Saturday sees so many excellent bands join the line-up.

Doors open at 2pm.

The fun doesn’t stop there though, I stepped into Mike’s fine shoes on Radio Warrington to present the station’s unsigned show last week and I’ll be doing it again this Saturday.

We hope to have Filthy Tricks’ debut single, Black Diamond Eyes, for an exclusive play plus much more.

Give it a listen between 5pm and 6pm this Saturday on 1332am, the TuneIn app or via your favourite smart speaker.

May’s Festival comes just a few weeks before Neighbourhood Weekender and with the likes of Glastonferry and other festivals following, it shows how important music can be not only to the soul, but to the town’s economy.

They say it’s important to buy local. Perhaps they should also say ‘support local’. Go to the shows, buy the songs, buy a T-shirt and I’ll see you down the front.