The Tunbridge Wells music scene

By Andrew Parry
BBC Blast Music Reporter

The Tunbridge Wells Forum is somewhat of a legendary venue, and has seen more bands through their doors than the entire population of Tunbridge Wells' hot dinner tally.

They have an incredible knack of booking bands just before their launch into superstardom too, which is handy. I spoke to Jason Dormon about how it all started.

The Forum, Tunbridge Wells

As well as attracting touring bands, Tunbridge Wells offers great opportunities and support for local talent. The Grey Lady on the Pantiles has live music every Wednesday and Sunday, run by Paul Dunton, who also organises the Local & Live festival every summer.

The Grey Lady

Local & Live

Tom Williams and the Boat

Tom Williams and the Boat and Klaus are two bands that have made a name for themselves coming from Tunbridge Wells, and I managed to catch up with Tom Williams at a gig at High Rocks in Tunbridge Wells and get the lo-down on all things musical in Twells. That's what the cool kids call it by the way.

MySpace: Tom Williams and the Boat

MySpace: Klauss

Tunbridge Wells is such an exciting town for music that is almost overwhelming. The thing that is so apparent that is everyone involved in the scene is doing it for the love of live music. There is a real hunger for music in Tunbridge Wells, and the Forum, Grey Lady and the large amount of home grown bands are testament to that.

We love it so much that we had our resident singer-songwriter write a song about Tunbridge Wells. We told him to try and capture this passion and hunger for music that Tunbridge Wells has in about thirty seconds. Here's what he came up with.

Tunbridge Wells has such a vibrant musical community that it would be foolish not to get involved. This way, whenever your friends talk about ANY band ever to have existed, you can say "oh yeah, I saw them at the Forum when they were tiiiiiiiiiiny." Which we all love to do.