The funeral for rock musician Mike Peters was “spot on perfect”, his friend and charity co-founder has said, as the singer was laid to rest in the village he lived in.
The rock star, who was the frontman of Welsh band The Alarm, died on April 29 from blood cancer at the age of 66 – more than 30 years after he was first diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) at the age of 36.
Fans and friends travelled from all over the world to celebrate Peters’s life, with tears and laughter inside the Parish Church of St Bridget and St Cwyfan in Dyserth, north Wales, during the two-hour service.
Peters’s wife, Jules, 58, and their sons Dylan, 21, and Evan, 18, were applauded by hundreds of fans as they walked into the church, with his wife clutching a single red rose and his youngest son carrying his father’s ashes.
Around 150 guests attended the emotional funeral service, including James Chippendale, the co-founder of Peters’s charity, Love Hope Strength, which aims to raise awareness and funds for those fighting cancer.
Speaking to the PA News Agency after the service, Mr Chippendale said the celebration of his life was “very, very Mike Peters”.
He said: “A little bit grungy, a little bit long, a little bit funny, a little bit sad, great music, and it just couldn’t have been a more perfect ending. I think he would have been laughing his ass off.”
Paying tribute to his friend of 18 years, Chippendale, who travelled from Mexico for the funeral, said: “Here’s the thing about Mike – whether you were his great mate like me, or his fans, he’s always the same.
“What you saw on stage, what you saw when he was interacting with the fans, was Mike.
“Mike never faked it. Mike was always authentic, just amazingly authentic.
“I think that’s why so many people gravitate towards him, and I think that’s why so many people connect with him.
“If you put yourself out there like he did and open yourself up like he did, there’s no way of not loving him, honestly.”
He said the musician has changed the lives of people who did not even know him through his charity work, such as his Get On The List campaigns, often publicised at rock concerts, which have seen the charity add more than 250,000 people to stem cell registers worldwide.
He said: “I think that the legacy is not how he affected the fans or his family or his friends, but how he affected the people that never even knew he existed.
“Through the charity work, there’s people alive today because of the work that Mike did. And that’s the real, true definition of when you know you changed the world.
“You got the songs, you got the charity, you’ve got his boys, you’ve got Jules. It’ll all live on, but there are thousands and thousands of people that are also living on because of him.”
Fans who gathered outside the church with ice creams, picnics and drinks to watch the funeral on a big screen wiped away tears, applauded and sang along throughout the ceremony, which featured tributes from friends and musicians including Peters’s bandmate Eddie Macdonald of The Alarm, as well as drummer Slim Jim Phantom of the Stray Cats and Billy Duffy of The Cult, who played Fade In, Fade Out, Fade Away.
Bruce and Jamie Watson of Big Country, a band Peters was a member of between 2011 and 2013, also played Fragile Thing.
Producer and director Alex Coletti became tearful as he shared memories of Peters sharing his vitamins with him while he was fighting cancer, as they both reached Everest base camp.
He said: “Mike was all that everyone said he was and so much more.
“Mike had to carry medicine and he had a vitamin supplement, just enough to get him through the trek, and one morning, as the climb got higher and harder, he said ‘here, drink this’. And he did that every morning, even though he needed every drop.
“I thought I was there to look after him, but he was looking after me.”
Slim Jim Phantom recalled meeting Peters when he was 17 under “false pretences” after he turned up to a Stray Cats gig with his band pretending to be the opening act.
He said: “He did about seven shows until someone figured out they weren’t the opening act, but by that point it was too late, Mikey boy had worked his magic on me and I loved the guy.”
He added: “We always stayed in very close touch all these years. I truly love the guy and I think about him all the time.”
Eddie MacDonald shared memories of meeting Peters as babies on Rhyl beach and growing up together, forming their first band at 17 and their rise to success, calling him a “catalyst who always made things happen”.
He said: “He was entrepreneurial, his energy, his drive was infectious. Whenever he set his heart on something, he would achieve it and God help anyone who got in his way.
“He was a huge inspiration to work with.”
There was also a “minute of noise” started by The Alarm’s tour manager Andy Labrow, which saw those inside and outside the church cheering, clapping and whooping in Peters’s memory.
Peters’s wife Jules said they had “39 wonderful years” together, with the last year before his death “one of our best years ever, living life to the full”.
She said: “I want to thank you all for coming from far and wide and everyone outside – it was the most incredible thing to arrive and walk down to that, it set the tears off but it was happy tears.
“Mike would be so proud.”
She added: “Let’s be happy today and concentrate on all that we have had with our beloved Michael Leslie Peters. He will live on in our hearts and live on in his music.”
Peters, who supported U2 and Status Quo on tour and played with Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, underwent numerous drug treatments and rounds of chemotherapy, and had tried experimental therapy to keep his cancer at bay.
Last year, five days before he was due to fly to Chicago for a 50-date US tour, he noticed that a lump in his neck had appeared overnight and doctors quickly realised the star had developed Richter’s syndrome, where CLL changes into a much more aggressive lymphoma.
He had been undergoing treatment at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester before his death.
The artist first rose to prominence in the early 1980s with The Alarm, with hits including 68 Guns and Strength.
He was made an MBE in 2019 for voluntary services to cancer care in north Wales and abroad.
