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Date: 8/3/2021
WESTFIELD – The ’80s Dance Party with Kategory 5 is the second concert in the free Westfield Concert Series Powered by Westfield Gas + Electric on Aug. 28, featuring Westfield’s own Matthew Bussell as the opening act.
The concert takes place behind the Boys & Girls Club. Gates open at 5:30 p.m. for shopping with the Western Mass. Shop Local vendor fair, food trucks and seating. Anyone who makes a donation to Westfield on Weekends and Westfield Kiwanis will receive preferred seating. Bussell, a 12-year-old performer, will open the show at 6:45 p.m. before Kategory 5 takes the stage at 7:30 p.m.
Bussell was bit by the performing bug five years ago and has sung around the country. He opened the first show in the series – a Queen tribute – last month. Bussell said it was fitting that his first performance was opening for the Killer Queen Experience.
“I love Queen,” he said.
Bussell enjoys singing songs from various genres, from Broadway tunes to ’80s hits and more.
While most of Bussell’s peers are spending their days a typical summer camps, taking a swim and playing video games, Bussell has been hard at work not only gearing up for the concerts – which include the Aug. 28 Kategory 5 show and the Sept. 25 Santana tribute band Jingo – but he is also learning piano, taking dance classes and performing in two plays: “The Addams Family” with his theater camp in Granby, CT, and “Shrek” with the Opera House Players in Enfield, CT.
“I’m busy, but I love it,” he said, noting he is especially excited to perform at the concert series.
Bussell comes from a talented family. His mother Pamela was a singer who attended the Berklee School of Music and was a musical theater actor. His older sister Julia is also studying musical theater in college, and performs. Bussell also has an older brother, Scotty, and his father, Scott, who do not perform but are Bussell’s biggest fans.
Pam Bussell said since the COVID–19 bans were lifted, she is only home one night a week, because of Bussell’s rehearsal schedules, and he also takes voice lessons at the University of Hartford.
“It’s okay, though, because he loves it and I love watching my children perform and succeed and do what they love,” said Pam Bussell.
Pam Bussell said when Bussell joined the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Westfield’s theater group at age 7, she had no idea that five years later he would have sung in Houston and New York at club events, as well as in Washington, D.C., at the national Boys & Girls Club Youth of the Year awards, or become an opening act for a concert series
“I had no idea that joining the Boys & Girls Club would lead to this,” she said. “It’s crazy.”
Bussell said performing makes him happy because it makes others happy. “I’m really excited,” he said
For more information on the concert series, visit westfieldlivemusic.com.