A musical celebration of the life of Huw Peach

A concert billed as a memorial to Huw Peach ended up being an emotional celebration of a wonderful man, both poignant and life affirming with some extraordinary young Salopian musical talent on display and ending with an impromptu ABBA singalong!

At the start of the evening Giles Bell reminisced about attending musical events with Huw whose famous positivity meant he always found something to like regardless of the quality. It wouldn’t have been difficult on the night as the performers were all outstanding.

The first act was 'Idlework', made up of Upper VI pupil Ivo and his creative partner Daisy. Old family friends, they have been writing music together since they were six. Their melodic but energetic vibe, sublime vocals and magnetic stage presence means they have already achieved significant success signing a record deal and racking up more than 35,000 listens a month on Spotify.

The concert was organised by the Salopian Club and Joe Bell (I& Rb 2010-15). Joe is an established singer songwriter on the London music scene. He entertained the audience with an upbeat set of his signature alternative pop music with intelligent, thoughtful lyrics including a witty song about his favourite old trainers, just the sort of music Huw loved in recent years. The interval however brought a revelation. One of Huw’s oldest friends took to the stage to tell the story of the ‘Trailblazers’ a heavy metal band in 80s Abingdon with one Huw Peach on drums. It was difficult to judge which was more surprising, that the young Huw was obsessed with ZZ Top obsession or that Abingdon had a hard rock scene!

The final act was a band assembled by Matthew Keulemans (PH 2017-22) who is studying bass guitar at the Manchester Conservatoire. Keeping it in the family Tabitha Winkley (G 2017-22) and Eleanor Keulemans (MSH 2018-23) were on vocal duties, Ivo Winkley stayed on keyboards and Ethan Poon (I 2018-23) was in Huw’s seat at the drums. A star of the musical department in recent years, Ethan has stayed on to work at School in his gap year. They took the audience on a tour of some of Huw’s ‘Desert Island Discs’ including ‘I don’t feel like dancing’ by the Scissor Sisters which, on the contrary, had everyone bopping in the aisles.

Their set culminated in Huw’s favourite song ‘Closer to Fine’ by the Indigo Girls. The combination of Tabs’ and Ellie’s voices rightly described by Giles Bell, ‘a little piece of heaven on earth’. They should definitely perform together again, and as Matthew suggested call themselves the ‘Blazetrailers’. 

Calls for an encore took a surprising turn when Huw’s brother Guy and sister Kate took to the mike and led everyone in a rousing rendition of ‘Thank you for the Music.’ It was no trouble at all for the young musicians to pick up the tune and the evening ended on a soaring note.

Just under £1500 was raised for the Brain Tumour Charity to fund research into the disease which sadly took Huw from us far too soon.