A NORTHWICH band has seen their music career take a startling jump since performing as part of the Charlatans North by Northwich Festival.

Delights are a four-piece band made up of Sir John Deane's College students from Northwich and Knutsford and they have just announced a show at the award-winning Band on the Wall venue in Manchester.

Ben Squires, guitarist, said: “The Band on the Wall gig is our first on our next tour. We are pretty buzzing to be involved in it.

“The gig has been put on by Amazing Radio and Shell Zenner, who is a DJ for BBC Introducing Manchester.

“We had our new single ‘Sun Visor’ been played on BBC Introducing Manchester as well.

“We are hoping this will be a good way for people to hear us play because it is a free gig so it should be really good.

The band made it onto North by Northwich after a chance encounter at an exhibition in the Northwich Plaza.

Ben said: “We went to the Charlatans’ exhibition on our lunch break just to see what was going on there.

“We got talking to Nick Fraser but we did not know who he was at the time.

“We were talking to him about us being in a band and apparently one of the other bands on the festival line-up had just dropped out and so they were looking for a replacement.

“He asked us to send some tunes over to his friend Meds and before we knew it we were on the line-up.

“That gig was our first big break really. We had been a band for two years and we have put a lot of work in to this ourselves but that festival has really helped us.”

Since the North by Northwich festival, Delights have played in the Tim Peaks stage at the Wheels and Fins festival in Kent which was headlined by The Libertines.

Ben said: “From that one gig we also got put on the Off the Record line-up in Manchester and we were recently added to the Kendall Calling line-up as well.

“Most of our festival performances have come from being part of The Charlatan’s festival.

“We are really chuffed about everything that has happened.

“Me and Ben and Adam were in a band prior to this, but it was more of a fun thing. We did not take it very seriously and it was mostly just our friends who came to see us.”

Delights are now focusing on getting more songs recorded and getting more headline gigs for themselves.

Ben said: “We have some studio time booked in and some songs that we need to produce, we are trying to get as much out as possible.

“We are currently on Mass records, which is like a combination of a record label and a college really. It is not technically a record label but we get free recording time which is really good for us.

“The plan is to get as much recorded as possible there but we have recorded a few songs ourselves as well.”

The band have a collective goal when it comes to their aims for live performances as well.

Ben Kirkland, bassist, said: “Next year I’d like to put on a tour where we are the headline act and sell a significant amount of tickets ourselves.

“We sell a lot of tickets around Manchester but usually we a main support act for another band as we don’t really sell enough in the places we play other than Manchester so that would definitely be a goal for us.”