The London based rock music organisation ‘Rockschool’ were in Shetland last weekend as part of Shetland Arts Trust’s ‘Solid Rock’ youth rock music programme, an initiative run in partnership with SIC Community Services.

Around 10 young local bands attended two days of workshops in the Clickimin Centre that concentrated on a wide range of issues including creative music development, group structure, onstage communication and stage performance.

Shetland Arts Trust music development officer Davie Gardner said “Everybody involved seemed to have a fantastic time and benefited greatly from the experience. The improvement in all the bands technical and stage performance by the end of the weekend was nothing short of amazing. The tutors were very impressed indeed by the quality and sheer commitment of our young musicians and although they worked them very hard over the two days the young folk stayed incredibly enthusiastic right to the end of the workshop programme. In fact it proved difficulty to get them to go home at the end of the event, as they just wanted to carry on playing and learning more new skills”.

Sandy Middleton (17) guitarist and vocalist with the group ‘Juvenile Delinquents’ said “We had a really great weekend and learned much more than we ever expected over the two days. Although it was hard work we really enjoyed learning about new things such as dynamics and stage presence. We will carry on working on and practising the things we learned over the weekend and will hopefully become a much better band because of this”.

A youth concert was promoted on the Saturday night as part of the event, with around 130 young people turning out see the bands who had been taking part in the workshops perform live sets in the Clickimin Centre bowls hall.

For further information contact David Gardner on (01595) 697550.