As regular readers will know, we were very keen to promote the cycling tour of The Adventurists when they visited our fair Isle a couple of weeks ago. We’ve got an interview coming up soon with them, but in the meantime many thanks to VB reader, Alex Varley-Winter for sending in her take of the visit. Ed
I am waiting on St Catherine’s point for a band to play, surveying the steep hill below. It is 3pm. The Adventurists have advertised a gig here, but, scanning the horizon for helmeted, guitar-bearing silhouettes, the band, who planned their entire tour on bicycles, are nowhere to be seen. My phone rings.
“We’re running very behind”¦ We’re at, err, the Wight Mouse Inn,” says Sam, then, a little desperately. ‘How long d’you reckon it’ll take to Blackgang? Half an hour? An hour?’
An hour later The Adventurists haul themselves, ruddy-faced, over the brow of the hill. Sam, the drummer, is dragging a trailer made up of a fold-out stage carrying their drumkit, steel drum, solar-powered amplifier, guitar and a small harp.
The Adventurists, a duo from Brighton, are marauding around the Island for sustainable gigs relying on pedals, footwork and the sun. They are accompanied by camera man, Luke, who cycles too with a weatherbeaten grin, balancing his camera aloft. The band are compiling a film of the tour, interviewing local artists and musicians along the way, inspired by a ‘whole little world’ of pedal-powered musicians such as The Ginger Ninjas, who toured the southern States of America down to Mexico under their own steam.
The Adventurists, Daniel Clark and Sam Walker, are new to this game, and failed to account for hills. ‘You made it!’ I chirp infuriatingly. ‘It’s funny isn’t it, it takes two minutes to go down that hill and, I dunno”¦ twenty minutes to go up it?’ Dan just shakes his head at me. They have missed their gig completely. Sam mutters something about failure, but as Dan will put it later: ‘The hardest things have been the best things, the pain, you know, yes, the woe! The woe we feel. But just the doing of it, the making of a stupid idea and just going for it and doing it, and people saying “you know, that’s not so stupid, we’ll help you,” that’s been the best part.’
They still have time, however, to do a quick interview on St Catherine’s Point with metal sculptor David Badman on the back of his pick-up truck, before pressing on to Niton.
‘Want to come along?’
Dan races me. ‘Go on, you’re winning, you’re winning!’
Cries of ‘woah! Woah!!’ sound behind as Sam sails into the village propelled by the full weight of the stage. We receive a warm welcome in Niton, being taken in for dinner, strawberries and meringue, after which we move on to the Buddle Inn (‘hello hill,’ says Sam, and we push the trailer through the village). Tonight’s venue is bathed in sunshine. ‘We’ve seen some beautiful pubs haven’t we? Proper old English pubs,’ Sam grins.
The Buddle Inn, with cavernous vaulting ceilings and sea views, makes the perfect setting for that night’s stirring performance of the folk classic Matty Groves, with Sam stomping on wooden boards, his drum clattering towards the tale’s savage climax. The Adventurists’ music reminds me of sea shanties and folksongs, a little like Tom Waits’ latest work, but with a more spirited raggedness, like gypsy-punk sensation Gogol Bordello.
The pair are less a band, however, than a pairing of solo artists: Dan’s performance reveals him a stand-up comedian who specialises in musical storytelling, frequently interrupting himself to make self-conscious quips, and demanding audience interaction (at one point, we are asked to mimic a refrigerator). Sam, tapping and jamming behind him, lends a more melodramatic streak to the night, building in pitch with a passionate intensity, and what he acknowledges an ‘apocalyptic phase’ influencing some of his songs.
Their performance is interspersed with slots from folk-duo Rose Millard and Ed Miller with gentle classics, rocking their guitars like babies, songstress Zoe Eady, strumming and thumping to storytelling songs graced with a natural, unfettered joy, and the pre-raphaelite Holly Kirby, whose birdlike acoustic songs are inspired by Wordsworth. After this, The Adventurists return to the stage, and end their performance with a charmed audience crooning ‘Isle of Wight/ Isle of Wight/ Isle of Wight…’ in time with the music, at Dan’s behest.
On a beach trip I catch up with with the band for final impressions of their tour on Ventnor seafront, where they tinkle away on harp and drum in a relaxed manner to a small crowd who bask in the sun. As they pack up, I ask them for their concluding thoughts. While admitting they need to plan their routes better in future, they are keen to do more.
‘It’s a brilliant way to travel,’ says Sam. ‘All beautiful really.’ Dan explains that there is a unique value to being exposed on two wheels: ‘It’s completely different to car tours because it’s done at a human level, it feels like we’re attracting humans to us. We seem to be meeting so many amazing characters along the way, just coming out of the woodwork, and we’ve seen so much kindness and so much gratuity and care from people, it’s just been a really life affirming experience.’
The band would like to explore more islands, asking whether these environments uniquely foster creativity. They are compiling their film about their tour and the artists they met, and look forward to returning to the Isle of Wight.
The Adventurists will play at Bestival in September.
Images: The Adventurists Play The Country Club at Ventnor Youth Club by Annie Leonard
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