No other word for it.
Except maybe: amazing. Incredible. A one off. Fantastic.
I’m talking about Fire Garden at Stonehenge last night.
Not only was a huge amount of people old and young allowed to walk in amongst the stones – a rare experience in itself – but the Fire Garden was breathtaking. Continue reading
Winchester Hat Fair is, in fact, the UK’s longest running festival of street theatre, comedy and music. It’s called the Hat Fair because, essentially, it’s a busking festival – all of the acts are paid by the crowd, who (hopefully) throw money into their hats at the end of a performance. This is called ‘hatting’.
So, there are hundreds of free events (well, free if you have no conscience) alongside a handful of ticketed spectaculars, one of which French company Generik Vapeurs’ very exciting sounding new Waterlitz show, including an explosive display of pyrotechnics (ooh!), breath-taking aerial stunts (gasp!) and a 30m high giant made of shipping containers (aah!), was… cancelled due to the bad weather.
Still, plenty more going on – the town centre was taken over by dozens of acts on Friday and Saturday, while on Sunday the fun moved to Oram’s Arbour, a lovely park at the top of town, which is where Festival Chronicle (still feeling a bit tired and soggy from Avebury Rocks the night before) spent a few delightful hours. Continue reading
Belting out their Number 51 sort-of-hit single One Way (“There’s only one way of life and that’s yer own, yer own, yer own …”), that night in Cardiff the band inspired a venue full of university students to smash the system.
So we did, and by the time the band’s poppy Beautiful Day had charted at the the dizzy heights of Number 13 in August 1997 we’d thrown out the Conservatives and elected Tony Blair and his New Labour party. Go us. Continue reading
Grammy Award-winning soul diva Joss will be making a special guest appearance to perform with Yes Sir Boss on Thursday, July 12.
The You Had Me singer’s gravelly but lustrous vocals will bring an extra treat to an already great evening of entertainment on Thursday as she joins Yes Sir Boss – the newest signings to her own Stone’d Records label – on the main stage. Continue reading
Rotary Club spokesman David Frampton and his team visited Avebury Sports Field this afternoon (Wednesday), and confirmed that the ground was dry enough to the stage to be erected and for an audience of up to 1,500 people to be granted access to the site on Saturday (July 7).
He confirmed that despite a summer marred by rain and cold weather, 900 tickets had been sold for the outdoor gig, and over 100 people had signed up for an associated 20-mile walk, which will include Wiltshire’s highest concert on top of Mark Hill, the joint-highest point in the county.
Mr Frampton was also able to confirm a last minute addition to the lineup. Swindon signing sensation Jess Hall and her band (pictured), whose track Play Shy has received Radio 1 airplay, will join a line-up that includes Mike Peters, lead singer from rock bands The Alarm and Big Country; Nick Harper local singer/song writer and son of legendary singer Roy; Cy Curnin and Jamie West-Oram of the rock band The Fixx; and acclaimed acoustic duo Swans in Flight. Continue reading
One of the greatest mysteries of the prehistoric world is why Stonehenge was built. But the thinking behind a life-sized inflatable version of the world-famous monument is easier to ascertain – and it might have more to do with nearby Avebury than its younger but better-known cousin.
This morning Festival Chronicle was lucky enough to catch up with Jeremy Deller, the Turner Prize-winning artist behind art-installation-cum-bouncy-castle Sacrilege.
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But whatever Queen Mary brings to the party, I wonder if it will do as much to enliven the area, or to bring as many people to South Bristol, as Upfest, Europe’s biggest street art festival, where the streets were alive with the smell of spray paint yesterday.
There was a gaggle (?) of graffiti artists from all over the world of all ages, shapes and sizes spraying walls, boards, shop fronts, beer gardens, beards (saw a pink one) and of course a New York subway train.
I’ll bet when the Queen visited Salisbury back on May 1 (International Workers’ Day, not that the UK ever recognises it) she never thought her jaunt would be immortalised in graffiti art.
But that’s exactly what happened at the weekend, when Brazilian street artist Chivitz created new works at Salisbury Arts Centre as part of the Salisbury International Arts Festival.
The Queen, who is quite used to having portraits done, although probably never like this, is pictured in the outfit she wore when she visited the city, although the cheeky graffiti artist has her brandishing a spray can. Continue reading
Fun. For kids. An ancient hill fort. Summer sunshine music. Sounded great. Continue reading
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