FIVE years ago Andy Whitby was stacking shelves in Kingsley’s village Co-op store - tomorrow he will play to 50,000 people on one of the biggest nights of his life. His rise to fame and fortune as a DJ can only be described as meteoric. On the eve of Creamfields – one of the largest dance music festivals in the world taking place at the Daresbury Estate in Halton this bank holiday weekend – Andy is still taking time to get used to his celebrity status. ‘It’s surreal,’ he said. ‘I have my very own fan group is just crazy. It’s quite cool really.’ Andy, 25, grew up in Kingsley and attended St John’s Primary School, Helsby High School and Mid Cheshire College in Northwich. Having bought his first set of decks, his teenage years would be mainly spent in his bedroom playing and mixing his favourite harder and faster style of dance music known as ‘hard house’. But it was while he was working at his local village shop, to help fund his education at Manchester College of Music, that his life changed forever. ‘I had a row with the manager there and I told him to stuff his job and I walked out,’ Andy explains. ‘But when I got out of the shop I saw I had a text message on my mobile phone from Will Patterson, a promoter for Frantic records and Nukleus who are two of the biggest labels in the industry. He’d been given one of my demo CDs and wanted to meet me. I suppose you could say it was fate.’ After playing regular clubnights at Addiction in Northwich and afterparties in Manchester, Andy won a DJ competition hosted by the website 4Clubbers.net and from that success, he found himself being booked for bigger and better gigs. Andy has since DJ’d to audiences across the world, including Australia, Japan, Holland Canada and Ibiza. He has also mixed albums including Frantic Euphoria alongside veteran hard dance DJ Anne Savage. Next up for Andy, who now lives in Peterborough with girlfriend Cally, is this weekend’s Creamfields festival. ‘I’m really looking forward to it, mainly because it’s my debut! ‘My brother is going to be there and I expect a lot of people are going to come a see me. ‘My mum and dad won’t be coming though as it’s a bit too loud for them!’ With his own record label on the verge of being launched, a new studio album and his very own fan group called ‘Keep It Whitby’, the future looks bright. To find out more about Andy, log on to his website www.andywhitby.com CREAMFIELDS runs from 3pm on Saturday, August 25 to 6am on Sunday, August 26. For tickets, priced from £57, phone the box office on 0870 242 7326 or visit www.ticketline.co.uk. | 
