Thanks for Dave Champion for sending this in after what sounds like quite a bash over the weekend – Ed.
To celebrate the fact that the Ventnor Fringe festival is now open for artist applications organisers decided to stage a two-day event in keeping with the fringe ethos. The Victorian basement of Ventnor’s El Toro bar was chosen as the perfect destination to host a gathering of music and film. The event went from 1pm till late on Friday 7th and Saturday 8th of January, and attracted a lovely crowd of fans and performers.
Friday
Friday evening saw the snug, warmly lit, stone-walled basement packed with folk from all corners of the island who came to enjoy the drunken open mic affair that unfolded. Attendees were encouraged to get stuck in and perform anything they wanted. A couple of guitars and a mic was all that was needed for some very entertaining and somewhat amusing musical renditions with some brilliant crowd participation.
The room was rammed and the atmosphere was electric with laughter, music and conversation. The enthusiasm of the crowd was such that the bar was drunk dry of lager and the event powered through late in to the night.
Saturday
The next day saw much of the same but with a slightly more structured and refined artist roster with performances from Keri Highland, Cephalodidge and The Shutes.
The afternoon saw showings of Vincent Moon’s take away shows projected on to a white sheet on the wall. Moon featured in last year’s fringe event running a picture house, and his influence is clear to see on the event as a whole with the themes of improvisation and offbeat performance venues being an integral part of the festival’s philosophy.
Keri Highland
Highland took the opportunity to debut some of her new, slightly experimental music. She sang beautifully with the aid of some pre recorded backing music and her note perfect piano playing. She built a solid rapport with the audience throughout her performance and each song was certainly well received by the crowd.
Cephalodidge provided his usual brand of incredible sounds playing the didgeridoo and the eclipse drum. The audience were transported to far off lands and completely captivated by the skill and the sounds of the performance.
The Shutes
The Shutes also played a stripped down, largely improvised set which featured just Mike and Rob. Mike played guitar and supplied some swirling, reverb-heavy vocal sounds while Rob plucked along with some McCartney-esque bass lines. The audience were encouraged to ‘bang on some tables n that’ and the set, along with the beverages, went down nicely.
The evening continued with the same momentum and the basement overflowed with people who partied late in to the night.
The Fringe celebration event beat the January blues to a pulp and will surely have some created some new Ventnor Fringe enthusiasts ready for the great summer arts pilgrimage.
