Rick Astley delights crowd with a montage of hits

Rick Astley in the Forests 2017

Friday 16th June to Saturday 8th July 2017
six forests around the UK, England
£36.50 (plus £4.15 booking fee)

Bedgebury is a beautiful forest, nestled in Kent. Used throughout the year for walking, cycling and general family events it opens its gates each summer to host some sensational musical gigs.

stage

Around the venue, the facilities are very clean, the vendors are carefully selected. The average attendee seems to be well turned out with all the oeuvres and picnics carefully selected.

The honour of hosting tonight’s event goes to eighties idol Rick Astley. The support act comes in the form of Rumer who’s silky smooth vocal performance is very similar to a young Karen Carpenter(Which is no bad thing). By the time she get to her debut hit ‘slow’ she has the crowd nicely swaying along. But make no mistake the punters have come tonight to see Astley.

Rumer

Now 51, he still looks as fresh faced as when he has his first hit aged 21 with the mega hit ‘Never gonna give you up’. He appears on stage to his mighty more recent hit ‘keep singing’ (which actually scored over 1.8m hits on Vevo) to a very receptive audience. His second song is ‘together forever’ (a guilty favourite of mine) has even the most of disconcerting of spouses on their feet. To say that the concert goers are eating out of his hand is an understatement.

Rick goes through a montage of hits, drawing from his recent his album ‘50’ (obviously celebrating his fiftieth year on this planet) right back through his extensive back catalogue. There is an interesting cover of AC DC’s ‘Highway to hell’(which shouldn’t work but really does), and a cover of Ed Sheerans’s ‘Shape of you’ (goes down remarkably well). Even Rihanna gets the Astley makeover with a mash up of Yellow diamonds/Take me to your heart which he pulls off with get gusto. By the time he finishes with ‘Never gonna give you up’ the crowd is hysterical.

astley

Rick has achieved what many artists can only dream of, to keep the music listeners attention for over 30 years. This is a very difficult thing to do and proves that concert goers are ‘Never gonna give him up’.

review by: Kristina Clark

photos by: Jason Richardson