Bangor Aid 2011
Over the weekend just gone I spent most of my hours at the Bangor Aid festival with StormFM. Bangor Aid was a 2 day charity festival to raise money for Bangor homeless folks, the event showcased many local artists as well as other world music acts.
As Head of Tech for StormFM I was partly responsible for getting all the gear and setting it all up ready to broadcast the event. This was a wicked learning experience as it was my first outdoor broadcast and the first time I’d properly seen some of the equipment. I don’t personally feel I did too badly, I reckon I got a fair grasp and coped alright, others may say otherwise though. Over the course of the weekend I did however consume way too many biscuits, the final total somewhere in the region of six or seven packs over two days coupled with as many cans of Relentless made for a somewhat hyper weekend. Anyways, back to the festival itself. Whilst I spent the majority of the weekend behind the desks in the main room, I did occasionally manage to slip out to check out what was happening elsewhere.
Friday night was world music night with a selection of different musical and entertainment acts playing out, easily the most notable of which was the band Thabani (See Here) who were a sort of funky carnival inspired African beats act. These guys were really cool and I enjoyed their set quite a lot considering it wasn’t the type of music I would normally listen to. Saturday was when all the real action happened, during the daytime the main stage played host to a variety of acoustic acts, all of which were impressive but others stood out a little more. Eve Goodman (See Here) is definitely one of these, this girl had an absolutely cracking voice and her stuff was amazing, I’ll be buying that EP for sure. Another act who was worth mention was Math Bolton (See Here) who also had a really good voice and talent. I didn’t really move form the main stage during the day so reviews are limited though I heard there were some other good acts elsewhere.
Finally, the festival ended with Saturday nights “Rock Night” which was a quality evening of music. No Light At Lockdown (See Here) were a fairly typical pop punky style band but put on quite a good act and really worked with the audience, but my fave act from the evening was found when I managed to slip away from the main stage and discovered Further From The Truth (See Here) hiding out in one of the back rooms. These guys were awesome, a kind of heavier Within Temptation crossed with a variety of other bands. The best part was I got to interview these guys for StormFM which was really cool as I got to have a good chat with them all and they are really sound folks, they even gave us a copy of their EP which is wicked.
All in all the weekend was really good fun. I got to learn how to setup, run and unset a full scale outdoor broadcast, got to go on air live from a music festival, got to experience some new music and find some nice new talent to check out, got to interview some bands and had a real good laugh. Best part is that the whole event even made a worthwhile profit! Wins all round!!