Westend Fest is a live event that brings together various West End performers for an evening of music at St. Paul’s Church in Covent Garden. This time the show was held in aid of CRY Foundation (find out more about their work here: http://www.c-r-y.org.uk/) and in memory of Matt Beadle, wo sadly passed away last year.
There were so many highlights so I will only point out a few. First of all the wonderful Norman Bowman provided one of the show stoppers of the evening with his sing along “Deliliah” and his fantastic “Who’s the man”.
Then there was MiG Ayesa who treated the audience to three songs: “Hammer to fall” (with Lauren Varnham), “Hallelujah” (on piano, with Paul Ayres) and “Fix You” (with Sabrina Aloueche). I would like to quote Paul Ayres and say “He (MiG) is a legend!”. Watch MiG and Lauren sing “Hammer to fall” here:
Matt Wycliffe showed everyone what a huge musical talent he is by not only performing two of his own songs but also playing three instruments in total. I was especially impressed by his piano playing. Here’s a clip of him performing:
Personally I loved hearing Rebecca Trehearn sing “The Hill” from Once because I adore the whole score of this show and cannot wait to finally see it on stage next month. Simon Adkins doesn’t get the chance to show off his famtastic voice often enough so it was great to have him perform “Life of the party” on this occasion. Beside being a fabulous singer he also proved that he is a wonderful and entertaining moderator and quite a talented auctioneer.
However, the absolute highlight and probably on of the most heartbreakingly beautiful performances I have ever seen definitely was Matthew McKenna’s “No one but you”. I can hardly imagine how difficult it must have been for Matthew to sing this song at this event. I am happy and proud I was there to witness it and I’m sure everyone who attended the event will agree that this was one of those very special moments you will remember forever.
Nathan James closed the evening with two songs – personally I’m not really a fan of him as a performer although I do think he has a great voice. But the audience clearly loved him so I guess he was a good addition to the line up. I do think Matthew McKenna’s song should have been the last one of the evening though simply because it was impossible to top such an amazing performance.
For everyone that is interested, here is the running order of the evening (please note that Matthew McKenna was meant to sing “Show must go on” but sang “No one but you” instead).
Photo credit goes to @WestendFests . Go follow on Twitter to find out more about upcoming events.
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