THIS weekend could be your last chance to catch local band Biss Delta Survival – who have entertained countless music lovers in sell-out performances, while raising thousands of pounds for various local causes since their formation over 10 years ago.
With their trademark blend of fun and foot-tapping pop, skiffle, folk and blues – featuring instruments from bass to bottleneck slide – the Biss Delta Survival will be playing at the Inner Wheel Club of Westbury’s summer concert at Westbury Leigh Community Hall on Saturday 11th June at 7.30pm. The concert will be in aid of Westbury First Responders.
Biss Delta Survival is a local band made up of Pete Driscoll (guitars, vocal, mandolin); Gill Summers (bass guitar); Ray Bradfield (Dobro, melodeon, mandolin, vocal, 12-string guitar); Al Summers (bottleneck slide, guitar, vocal, ukulele) and this time with a special guest on percussion. This is likely to be the last public appearance of The Biss Delta – thus the Biss Delta ‘Survival’ moniker for this concert.
The band was the idea of Ray Bradfield and Al Summers in the last years of the last decade of the last century/millennium They set up the band with the intention of performing just once or twice a year to raise funds for charity. Their first performance was at the Westbury Music and Performance Festival, a week of events, concerts and workshops organised by Al and his wife Gill in 1999.
Since then, they have raised thousands of pounds for various local causes, most notably Bath Cancer Unit Action Group, and sold out almost all their club, community centre and theatre appearances.
This sees the original four founding members together – for what promises to be an evening of their usual mix of infectious fun and foot-tapping take on blues, folk and good-time roots music.
The concert will include a light supper and licensed bar. Tickets are £12.50 and available from earney david@gmail.com, or from 01373 465 305 or 01380 830 680.
The concert will be in aid of Westbury First Responders. Joanna Earney, from the Inner Wheel Club explained, “The First Responders came and gave a talk, and we donated £100 then. But they’re on a mission at the moment because they need more equipment. They’re the first ones to come out in an emergency.”
First Responder schemes provide volunteers who are trained to attend emergency calls, providing life saving treatment to people within the local community who are critically injured or ill in the first few minutes prior to the arrival of an emergency ambulance.
When the ambulance service receives a 999 call from someone living in the Westbury, Dilton Marsh, Edington, Bratton and North Bradley area, which indicates a situation that is considered immediately life threatening, a First Responder is also contacted and on average reaches the scene in just 2.5 minutes. On arrival, the First Responder will have all the training and equipment necessary to manage the patient in those first few critical minutes before the ambulance arrives.
