A crowd of 10,000 screaming fans gathered from 4pm at The Mall earlier today to watch boy band JLS perform after switching on the centre’s Christmas lights. As well as the excellent entertainment and fantastic lights, the concert was in aid of Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal, and the generous donations raised a brilliant amount of over £21,000.
Fashion stylist Mark Heyes presented the show and entertained the crowd whilst they eagerly waited for JLS to appear. Supporting JLS was Alexander Stewart and his seven piece band, who performed jazz arrangements of pop songs and Christmas songs, including Driving Home For Christmas.
Finally, JLS took the stage being greeted by a massive roar from the crowd. After a loud countdown from the crowd, Aston, Marvin, JB and Oritsé all pressed down on the plunger and the Christmas lights appeared, including a beautiful pink and white “enchanted ice castle”. So, the Christmas songs had been sung and the lights were on, so the only thing to come now was the fake snow, which was ejected out into the air covering the crowd with a white layer.
JLS then went on to amuse their fans, singing a few of their older songs, such as Beat Again, One Shot and Everybody in Love, as well as their more recent songs such as Eyes Wide Shut, Love You More and She Makes Me Wanna and songs from their new album, Evolution such as Give Me Love and Hottest Girl In The World. Of course, Christmas is not complete without presents, so as a special treat, the band performed a cover of Maroon 5’s Payphone. The boys pulled out their best dance moves to please their fans from the south west.
The Winter Wonderland is now open until Sunday 6th January 2013, including the new Enchanted Ice Castle, the largest outdoor ice rink in the south west and the new Christmas train ride. The Enchanted Ice Castle will be open every day until Christmas Eve and tickets cost £5, which includes a gift from Santa. Each ice skating session will start on the hour and last for 45 minutes at a cost of £4. New this year is the nursery ice rink which is available for younger and novice skaters. Also new this year is the The Mall’s Christmas train which rides through the Winter Wonderland garden. The Christmas train ride will be open every day from Saturday 10th November and tickets are priced at £2 per ride.
The switching-on of the lights also marks the introduction of longer opening hours. From today, The Mall will be open 9:30am-10pm every weekday, and 9am-9pm on Saturdays. From Monday 3rd December, The Mall will open at 9am on weekdays. For more information, visit www.mallcribbs.com.
More photos from the JLS concert on PicasaWeb (The Journal).
