MUSIC lovers braved a day of showers to enjoy Silsden’s own mini Glastonbury weekend.

The first ever Northern Lights festival took place in a marquee on the Riverside Fields.

Bands in the line-up included The Sheratons, The Escapades, Callum Spencer and tribute bands The Total Stone Roses, R.E.M. by Stipe and New2.

One of the organisers, Silsden town councillor Karen Conway, said: “It was absolutely amazing. The weather picked up at about 3pm. We had 800 to 900 people in and everybody loved it.

“It was a successful event, it was really good. Everybody loved it and nothing went wrong.

“There were a few problems with teenagers, but security were fantastic.”

The gig was organised by Karen and fellow town councillor Andrew Conway.

They chose to have the performances inside a large marquee, with a stage, professional lights and sound, in case of rain.

There was a bar during the day, and festival-goers were able to camp nearby through the night after the music finished. Also performing were DJ Yuley and DJ Lockt.

Profits from the event will be going towards the So Sally Can Wait appeal.

Mum-of-four Sally Major, who lived in Silsden, lost a battle against bowel cancer last month aged just 33 after fighting the disease in a private clinic near Stuttgart.

The family had resorted to taking out bank loans, remortgaging their home and selling their family car to pay for cutting-edge therapies and treatment not available on the NHS in the UK. Well-wishers moved by their plight also raised more than £70,000 to help them.

Funds leftover and raised in the future in Mrs Major's memory will now be split between helping the family pay off debts and a new trust being set up by Mr Major to help young people pay for private bowel cancer screening tests which could save their lives.

The Total Stone Roses, the headliners at the Northern Lights festival, specialise in a 90-minute set featuring the real band’s best songs like She Bangs The Drums, Fools Gold, Waterfall, I Wanna Be Adored and Love Spreads along with new tunes and recent releases.

Over the past seven years the Total Stone Roses have played sell-out gigs across the UK and boast 40,000 fans through the largest online presence of any Stone Roses tribute band.

The band, which aims to recreate the atmosphere of the late 1980s and early 90s, are made up of professional musicians who graduated from Leeds College of Music.

New2, one of the country’s leading U2 tribute bands, is fronted by Keighley man Frank Farkas.

He started out in Keighley in his early 20s with Mod band Unit 3, playing Jam and Who covers, and achieved success on the pub and club circuit with other bands.

Frank’s manager suggested he perform a U2 tribute because it looked and sounded like Bono, and has never looked back.

As well as fronting New2 Frank has helped out numerous times as frontman for other U2 tribute bands, and appeared in a pilot advert for Greggs the bakery as Bono.