Last updated 19:46, Thursday, 24 July 2008

LEAD for Page 8 Please put web box on here saying something like Keep up with the blues festival online at www.timesandstar.co.uk during the weekend pic ONE of the most important bands at Maryport Blues Festival will never play a note there.

Local blues outfit Sidewinder are the backstage crew at the three-day event, which starts tonight.

Drummer Mark Singleton, from near Aspatria, will be MC, Mike Dodd of Cockermouth, usually on lead guitar and vocals, will be stage manager and Kevin Farish, bass player, also of Cockermouth, will be helping with technical aspects.

Mark said he had previously played at the festival when his band, The Answer, won a Battle of the Bands and opened the event in 2005.

He said: “When that band broke up I started helping the committee and was MC for the Battle of the Bands.

“They asked me to compere the event last year and I am doing it again this year.

“I said yes immediately but it is much less nerve-wracking sitting behind a drum kit than it is being up on stage introducing the these major artists.”

Mike has been stage manager for a number of years, and Kevin, realising he was never going to get to play with Sidewinder anyway, joined the rest of them backstage.

Mark, who like the other members of the band will admit only to being somewhere between their mid-40s and their 50s, has been playing drums for around 12 years, initially as a way of regaining his fitness after a climbing accident.

Having played on the blues festival circuit for a number of years, he is aware of the hard work attached.

Mike returns backstage for his eighth year.

The stage manager and his team make sure that the artists get on and off stage on time.

Each band has different requirements from the previous one, and Mike and his team have to get the stage prepared for each allotted time slot – usually with only a 15-minute gap between acts.

Often bands would like to use their own equipment but there is seldom time to set this up, so Mike liaises with the artists and their management to work out a compromise that’s in the best interests of the festival and the audience.

Mike said the list of challenges was long but losing the power twice in 10 minutes, when Jools Holland last appeared at the Maryport festival, was probably the worst.