MPS at 'Beatles in Urmston' 50th Anniversary weekend

The weekend of 10/11th August in Urmston was a celebration of The Beatles playing there 50 years ago with a number of other bands. The weekend was carefully and excellently crafted to make it a celebration of all that was great in music in the sixties.

Saturday's headline act was The Bootleg Beatles and also playing were Herman's Hermits and The Tremeloes.

The Sunday was the highlight for MPS fans with MPS the headline act to close the whole event and supported earlier by The Rockin' Berries and The Merseybeats. All three acts of course handled by Tony Sherwood, nice one Tony!

This event was very special for MPS fans as it happened to be taking place at a time when Chris Black was in the UK on holiday. Chris of course was a founder member of MPS back in 1985 playing guitar and keyboards as well as on vocals. Chris was sadly missed when he emigrated to Australia. When asked if he would like to join MPS for a few numbers he jumped at the chance and as you can see from the photographs on this web site he loved every minute and it was true nostalgia to see him on stage with Mike and of course fellow founder member Barrie.

I am indebted to long term fan Hazel for supplying us with some fab pictures of this gig – only a selection are included on this site for space reasons. In fact we can thank Hazel for much more than that!

Hazel took a bold step a few years ago and since venturing into publishing her own community magazine, she has not looked back. Trafford Community Magazine is now a well-established magazine and has no shortage of supporters, contributors and advertisers.

Beatles' fan Peter Killick wanted to put on an anniversary concert of when the Beatles played Urmston 50 years ago. Many people showed interest in this including Hazel and of course her publication was an ideal way of publicising such an event. Several of the bands that Peter wanted to put on were also known to Hazel and in fact had been friends with for over 25 years in some cases. Come the actual day Hazel was busy taking photos and together with her daughter Heather and Hazel's sister Justine all helped back stage making sure that everyone was being fed and watered.

A big thank you Hazel for making this event so successful.

~ Roger Askey