An aspiring singer from Childwall has been shortlisted for a competition to perform at this year’s Glastonbury festival.
Neil Noa will be taking part in the ‘Glastonbury Emerging Talent’ competition in the shortlist of 120 artists. The the top eight finalists will get the chance to perform on the main stages at this year’s festival in June.
Neil is the only Liverpool performer to taking part.
Speaking to JMU Journalism, he said: “I got the voicemail and I heard ‘it’s Sue from the Glastonbury competition’. My mind was racing and I phoned her back and straight away she congratulated me.
“I just started laughing when I heard. She listened to the song I submitted and said I should be proud of it. It was crazy.”
The 28-year-old had been encouraged by one of his friends to apply to the Glastonbury competition, so he sent in one of his tracks, ‘Forever Gone’.
Neil added: “I can honestly say, if they pick me, I might cry! I’ve been to Glastonbury a couple of times and only imagined playing. I made a bucket list for my goals about two years ago, and Glastonbury is right up there. If I played there I could die a happy man.”
https://soundcloud.com/neilnoa/neil-noa-forever-gone?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=facebook
Noa primarily specialises in electronic music and performs with a live band. He said: I’ve been holding onto my music tightly, I’m so critical of it all. As such a big fan of music, I can’t help but try and be on the best’s level.
“Being picked has spurred me on like mad!
Neil said he plans to release more tracks beyond the festival and has stated he would like to release music videos to accompany his songs.
The Liverpudlian artist also gave advice for anyone wishing to follow their music aspirations, stressing: “Don’t let it be something you’d liked to have done – drop everything and do it. It’s taken me almost 10 years. Thats 10 years of growing and learning, but it goes from ‘imagine doing that” to ‘wait… I can actually do this’.
“You’ve just got to believe, I think. Work hard and you can actually do whatever you want.”
The competition will be whittled down from 120 finalists to eight, picked by judges including Glastonbury organisers Michael and Emily Eavis, before the live finals in April.