Festival - Starfish in the Park

I bumped into Hugh Harris, The Kooks’ lead guitarist and backing vocalist, in Castle Ditch Lane the other day, a Monday. He said it’d been quite a weekend. Then the penny dropped. He’d just played Glastonbury: the Kooks were ahead of Paul Weller on the bill. It’s been quite a year for Harris and his band: they’ve gone big in Japan, toured America, played Jools Holland’s Hogmanay show, and supported the Rolling Stones in front of 100,000 at the Millennium Stadium. And to think, just a few years ago, Hugh was getting a helping hand up the ladder from the guys at Starfish.

“It’s amazing, it’s genius, it really helped me out when I was younger,” he says of the Lewes-based organisation, which has been helping young contemporary musicians, aged 11-21, out with their music since 1998. “It gave me the confidence to perform at an early age.” Starfish give the kids who enrol space to practice, tuition, and the loan of instruments, and put on at least five gigs a year where their musicians can get a taste of playing live. The biggest event in their calendar, Starfish in the Park, which features over 20 young bands, takes place this weekend in the Paddock. Guitarists Dicken Marshall and Lee Westwood are guesting: youth bands out of the Starfish stable include Elsa Hewitt, Shed, Sweet Addiction and the Honeycuts. There will be stalls, giant games, and an amazing inflatable stage. AL