LOUD and proud - and that was just the audience! The Brewery's Malt Room was bouncing on Saturday when the Dangerous Brothers, Annie Mawson's rays of sunshine and a trio of Turkish delights gave a memorable charity performance, reports Adrian Mullen.
Annie opened the Whinfell Office Skills Project fund-raiser the centre provides training for adults with learning disabilities - with her own touch of magic and heavenly harp sounds.
Annie has presence useful both as fund-raiser for the Sunbeams Trust and as a performer too. Gentle in nature, her version of Wind Beneath my Wings drifted to new heights.
Ruth Bell and Andrew Galvin performed an African sound-scape and sax man Paul Palmer shared his self-penned Spiritual. Even Kendal bluesman Charlie Hunter was up on stage helping out, as well as plucking his trusty six-string in a solo of a Steve Earle number.
Joined by her Sunbeams group, Annie and her talented friends blazed a trail of uplifting songs such as When the Saints Go Marching In and soulful renditions of Wonderful Tonight and Ronan Keating's Nothing at All.
And later Kerry Jones, Debby Howrie and Linda Frickle shimmied and shook as part of the exotic Kendal Belly Dancers' routine.
But if its rock covers you want well they don't come much better than those blasted out by the Dangerous Brothers.
ZZ Top's Gimme All Your Lovin' and Sharp Dressed Man are just two razor edge examples of how the fun-loving boys can rock.
DG frontman Cameron Wade just lapped it up. How he moves around the stage with such agility in those heavy metal divers boots I'll never know. But he does, and does it in true rock style.
Bon Scott himself would have been proud of Cameron's vocal efforts on AC/DC's Highway to Hell, which had the Malt Room gathering jumping around as though Zep's Robert Plant was back in Kendal.
Thin Lizzy's Rosalie and Bad Company's Can't Get Enough Of Your Love had lead guitarist Peter Hill and rhythm player Lee Illingworth team up for a dose of twin guitar and the audience cried more, more, more' on the sizzling Rebel Yell.
Dylan's Knocking on Heaven's Door had the band take its foot off the accelerator slightly, allowing Steve mad dog' Edgar to show his more refined and subtle bass playing.
Then cranking it up again, drummer Andrew Wilson had the gathering leaping up and down as he kicked off the intro to Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll, before the whole gang steamed in with young gun Lee Illingworth coming into his own on the blistering Jimmy Page solo.
As for flat cap' Hill - he takes some beating as a guitarist. He makes it all look so easy and loves every second he's up there.
And what a way to finish a near note-perfect version of Free's classic Alright Now and Alice Cooper's anthem Schools Out.
- More than £1,000 was raised for WOSP.
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