Open House Festival
The Goat’s Toe Bar, Bangor
Every Friday in August
Avid readers of Folk & Tumble will know we’re big fans of the work of Open House Festival and despite some big changes this year, things have continued apace and I’ve been lucky enough to have been invited down to the usually quiet seaside town of Bangor, Northern Ireland to do some DJing.
The Goat’s Toe on Main Street is the venue. Cunningly hidden down an alleyway snaking off from the main shopping thoroughfare in the town, The Goat’s Toe is a real hidden gem in Bangor with excellent food, delicious Guinness, a fine range of whiskeys and more live music than you could shake a big (drum)stick at!
Friday 2nd August kicks off the opening weekend of the festival and with slicked back hair and almost inappropriately tight high-roller shirt on, I’m behind the decks warming up for The Sabrejets. Fronted by former Rudi vocalist and guitarist Brian Young, The Sabrejets are an all out good-time, rockabilly influenced outfit. They rock the hairstyles, rock the greaser image and rock the hell out of any stage I’ve seen them play. This show’s no different with an almost two hour set of relentless rockabilly, rock’n’roll and punk tunes. They play hard. They play fast. They play with the attitude you’d expect from Belfast punks.
Friday 9th August veers in a more bluesy direction with The Bonnevilles. There’s a lot of new material on offer from the Lurgan duo at the minute as to be expected with a new record dropping later in the year. ‘Folk Art & The Death Of Electric Jesus’ is the name and based on this, their second show of the day, it’s going to be one big dirty garage blues monster. Sometimes you’ll want to stomp a footer, bang your head or just admire from afar with a double bourbon… at other times you’ll feel like you’re staring into the grill of a thundering articulated lorry. And, I mean that in the best possible way!
Friday 16th August rolls around and it’s my last night DJing the bar this month. Each Friday has seen the bar packed out but with more than a hundred tickets pre-sold for this show the place is rammed right from the start. It’s a somewhat more gentile affair than prior weeks with David C Clements proving that you don’t need a snarl or a whole heap of distorted guitars to whip a Bangor crowd into a frenzy. It’s high quality singer-songwriter stuff from Clements with the backing of a hugely talented band. We’ve seen him gig with Foy Vance and Snow Patrol in the past and surely as the world goes mad for Ben Howard bigger things lie ahead.
The party continues late into the night. I’m getting the chance to play everything from folk and country through punk, rock and soul. It’s been tremendous fun and I’m using this chance as a bit of an open letter to say a huge thanks to Kieran, Minna and Alex at Open House Festival and everyone behind the bar and on the doors of The Goat’s Toe. I’ll be back soon. You bring the Guinness. I’ll bring the noise!