A NEW band made up of members of New Order and Devo chose the North by Northwich festival to unleash their music on the world for the first time.

And if the reaction of the packed Plaza crowd was anything to go by, the town may well have witnessed the beginnings of a band destined to go far.

Speaking to the Guardian before the band’s first gig, bassist Tom Chapman admitted he was apprehensive as to how people would react to the band’s material, which has been worked on over the past couple of years and has never been heard before.

But after an incredible response from the Northwich crowd at The Plaza last Friday night, the band are now full of optimism for the future.

“We’re onto a good thing here,” Tom said. “It’s been great so far and it can only get better.

“We didn’t expect it to go as well as it did to be honest. It went really well, we had a lot of fun playing to the crowd and we all came off stage buzzing from it.

“The reaction from the crowd was just something we couldn’t have expected. To get such a good response from people who are hearing songs they’ve never heard before is amazing.

“Thank you to everyone who came.”

The band is made up Tom and his fellow New Order member Phil Cunningham (guitar and keys), and Devo members Josh Hager (guitar, keys and lead vocals) and Jeff Friedl (drums).

With Jeff unable to join the band for their Northwich show, they were joined by Elliot Barlow on drums.

The crowd were also treated to guest appearances from guitarist Nick McCabe, formerly of The Verve and keyboard player and vocalist Ellen Lewis, who worked with New Order on five shows last year as part of a synthesiser orchestra.

Having now released their first single, Celebrate, which closed the show at The Plaza, and with their eponymously titled debut album set to drop in July, ShadowParty are chomping at the bit to spread their music far and wide.

They have gigs Manchester, Bristol and Nottingham this weekend as part of Dot to Dot Festival and are on the line-up for Festival Number 6 in Wales in September.

But lead singer Josh says the band would love to head back to Northwich sooner rather than later.

“We would totally come back to Northwich,” Josh said.

“I think Northwich should make this festival an annual event. It’s a really cool little town and we enjoyed walking around it and seeing everything that was going on for the festival. It was just buzzing and it was great to be a part of.”

And if the band do revisit the town, it would seem there would be only one place they would want to play.

“The Plaza is such a cool venue,” he said. “We were speaking to the owner and he was giving us the whole history behind the building.

“It looked great and there was a really good vibe around the place with the record fair as well.”

As well as Friday night’s ShadowParty gig, The Plaza, which was a cinema built in the 1930s and then a bingo hall, before it closed in 2007, hosted a record fair throughout Friday and Saturday.

It took a two-week blitz to get the building ready for the festival, and owner Will Godfrey, whose grandfather, Robert, built the building, says it will take a lot more work to get it permanently in tact for public use.

But after seeing the building in its full glory with ShadowParty on stage and a packed crowd enjoying the live music, that is exactly what Northwich folk want to see.

“Hopefully this can be a springboard for the future,” Will said. “It all well really well and this is how we all want to see this amazing building. We want to get it reopened off the back of this.

“We wanted to gauge the reaction of the public and of the band’s performing here.

“ShadowParty loved it, Nick McCabe loved it, and Paddy Considine said he would love to come and play here with his band Riding the Low. So it was all very positive, but now we have a lot of work to do to get it up to scratch.

“For independent owners like us, the days of single use venues are gone. We want to reopen the building as a mixed use venue and bring it back into public use and now we’ve shown we can host live music, and we can host a big record fair.”