A very special cover of classic Led Zeppelin hit, 'Stairway To Heaven' from the St Andrew's College Band in Christchurch, has gone viral.
This student performance was the headline act of the schools annual prize giving, which took place in front of over 3,500 people.
The performance was led by St Andrew's College head of music department, Duncan Ferguson, and music teacher Mark Hodgkinson.
Ferguson and Hodgkinson oversaw a performance which consisted over over 100 musicians, which infused the school's jazz and rock bands, along with school orchestra and senior choir.
Key to this performance of the iconic Led Zeppelin track, were students Grace Burnett (lead singer), Mia Fraser (lead guitarist), along with James McIver (acoustic guitarist). Burnett and Fraser are in year 13, with McIver in year 12.
This special cover of 'Stairway To Heaven' from St Andrew's College has become a major hit online, with over 150,000 views, and 4,000 likes on Facebook.
Reacting to this news, the head of the school's music department Duncan Ferguson said that he "didn't expect" it.
“I sat down at breakfast on Saturday morning and suddenly discovered there were 12,000 views, and I thought, oh, that’s a bit interesting", Ferguson explained. “Then, over the course of the weekend, it just got a bit nuts and, it’s exciting".
Ferguson also stated that putting this band together was “about a year-long process” but “wasn’t as hard as it seemed".
“The first time all the groups came together and heard it was just three days before the prize-giving where we had our final dress rehearsal", he revealed.
Ferguson also admitted that none of the students were overly keen about this performance at the beginning because “they were all quite young, and none of them listened to Led Zeppelin”.
“But once they saw all the groups together, they suddenly caught the vision for it, and they then got quite excited,” Ferguson added.
Check out the student's performance of this track here.
Widely viewed as one of the all time great rock songs ever, 'Stairway To Heaven' was written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant in 1971 for the band's fourth album, commonly known as Led Zeppelin IV.
Last month, we finally discovered the identity of the man from the album cover of Led Zeppelin IV. Find out more here.
