REVIEW: The Big Gig '18 '“ Horsham Tribute Music Festival

Festival-goers of all ages enjoyed a wonderful afternoon of live music on the grounds of Horsham Sports Club on Saturday.

The Big Gig ’18, Horsham’s tribute music festival, featured an array of energetic pop and rock covers from a selection of top-notch tribute acts.

The event also had plenty of food stalls full of tempting treats that included traditional fish and chips, Vietnamese street food, ice cream, candy floss and South American barbecue.

For the adults there were beer tents and vendors selling Pimms and Prosecco, while children were well catered for with fun activities, a bouncy castle and slide, face-painting and festival glitter.

Horsham’s own comedian and ‘newsagent provocateur’ John O’Sullivan was compere for the day, filling the time between bands with wisecracks, silly games and witty observations about audience members.

The first musical act of the festival was Flairz who delivered a feast of ’70s hits (ABBA, T-Rex, Wizzard, Bay City Rollers) in their lively and loud glam-rock style.

Singer and lead guitarist Zodiak Starchild was dressed in a garish gold, red and orange outfit, complete with a top hat, to pay homage to the genre’s pioneers.

When John O’Sullivan described Zodiak’s look as a cross between Tony Blair and Joanna Lumley, it was an image that this audience member was unable to remove from his mind. But Zodiak himself sprinkled plenty of wry, groan-worthy jokes into his set, making the whole thing a fun and tongue-in-cheek affair.

Next up was A Touch of Little Mix whose epic and somewhat ominous intro seemed a bit out of place with their bouncy, sassy yet inoffensive pop sound.

But the foursome are very good at what they do, and they provided Horsham with colourful singles from the popular girl group, which all featured tight choreography and impressive harmonising.

They got a great response from the young girls at the festival and the cheering at the front was noticeably high-pitched.

If Little Mix was a little too modern for the older audience members, Forever Jackson offered a trip back to the ’80s and ’90s with a fantastic tribute to The King of Pop.

Sure, Robin Parsons needs make-up and costumes to look like Michael Jackson, but he definitely doesn’t need any help sounding like him. His vocal performance at the Big Gig was astonishing, and captured that mix of sensitivity and strength that the real Jackson’s voice was able to convey.

It’s perhaps unfair to pick out one highlight in a set that contained ‘Thriller’, ‘Billy Jean’, ‘Beat It’ and ‘Smooth Criminal’, but for this ’90s kid it was ‘Black or White’. Robin perfectly expressed that exuberance and aggression that Jackson had in his 1991 chart-topper.

The dancing was great too and, yes, Robin performed all the moves properly including the iconic moonwalk.

This was a scaled down version of the full Forever Jackson show, with only two backup dancers and a backing track instead of a live band. But anyone who may have been disappointed by the lack of live instruments had nothing to complain about when The Blunter Brothers arrived on stage.

Featuring four saxophonists, a trumpeter, two singers and several others on a variety of instruments (I lost count to be honest), the band offered a set packed with funk, soul and jazz classics that had everyone at the front dancing.

Their sound was smooth, powerful and highly professional with a particularly strong version of ‘September’ by Earth, Wind and Fire.