GMF 2016- A Performer's Perspective

I am the sort of person who thinks that music festivals should be free, you know like Woodstock, and everyone just wanders about in a state of euphoria, possibly naked. I also think that charities shouldn’t exist because the state should ensure that all vulnerable people are looked after. So, now I have outed my shocking radical side I can tell you the story of my experience at ‘el GMF’ as an artist. This was my first time at The Gibraltar Music Festival (commonly known as #GMF); I was asked to appear as a filler poet on the new Acoustic Stage. This meant that I, along with my Po-Bro Jonathan Teuma had to leap on stage in between the musical acts and blast out an original poem. For us it wasn’t just a case of doing a 45-minute set then spending the rest of the weekend swanning around getting wildly drunk, no, we were on-call to be coherent AND entertaining at random, on BOTH days no less.

When you are a #GMF artist you get a unit in the high-security-protected Dressing Room with all the other artists. Yes, technically I shared a dressing room with NE-YO and the bloke from Europe. We even had riders...These London-based Spanish women looked after us and gave us Monster Munch crisps and beer at 1am, that sort of thing.

The Acoustic zone the coolest one of all, it has to be said, if you couldn’t be bothered to walk round the back of The Boathouse to find it then you missed a real treat. Underneath a white awning beside the sea there was a perfectly low stage. We simple poets & troubadours don’t like to be elevated above our audience, we want eye-contact, we want our listeners to relax so there were sofas, cushions, rugs and coffee tables, people could even smoke (!). The stage was hosted by the inimitable Gabriel Moreno who worked like a demon all weekend, he is exactly the sort of MC any artist wants, always encouraging, never let anyone leave without playing ‘just one last song’ he kept the whole thing jigging along very nicely. Gabriel even played a set of his own with the incredible violinist Barbara Bartz; the chemistry between these two musicians was tangible; duelling strings.

Everyone who played the Acoustic Stage was good. There were some very young local acts, not easy to get up and sing in front of a crowd of friends and family, but they all pulled it off and created a real buzz. There was a bit of everything: love, politics, sadness, humour. There were artists from Gibraltar, London, Poland, Scotland, Sevilla, America, even Chile. Leo Napier from L.A. was a tall, skinny redhead who thumped out jazzy Ray Charles-inspired numbers from a Roland keyboard, his side-kick was his pipe-smoking Dad on a saxophone. The two of them were extremely hip. Leo was so into it he would writhe and wriggle about and jump up and down from his piano stool, which wasn’t any old piano stool, no, it was one of those ex-MOD wooden dining room chairs; you know the ones with the ladder back and the green vinyl seat? Never has MOD furniture been so cool, again proving how avant-garde the Acoustic Stage was. For me the best act, dare I say it, the best thing I saw in the entire festival was Anna McLuckie. A beautiful Scottish lass with a voice like Florence, she played her harp accompanied by a guy on percussion and another who played 5-string bass and sang like and angel. The three of them mesmerised us all and we demanded an encore which we all clapped and sang along to; the trio will be back in Gib in November and they are well worth seeing.

I did manage to drag myself away and see some other performances. Local band Dead City Radio, excellent musicians with good original material, mind you, the stand-out bit had to be Daniel Ghio’s hair, that could have a set all of its own. I wanted to see my favourite Gibraltar artist Adrian Pisarello but I was performing at the same time so missed it, shame. Rosario was brilliant; she put on a real spectacle, the whole package and such a charmer. However, charm factor par excellence had to be NE-YO, that man loved the ladies and the ladies loved him, what a showman and what a way to close the first night.

I had one mission and one mission only on day 2 and that was to see Europe sing ‘The Final Countdown’. I was going to turn up at the end just to hear that but found myself watching their entire set, it’s not my thing whatsoever, never was, but that song is an anthem and whoever missed it missed out! Europe in all their black-leather-trousered-microphone-stand-swinging-glory. You knew it was coming when all the lights went out and Joey Tempest (what a name) said “Now let’s make some noise!” Up until that moment I had been standing sensibly at the side but I rushed straight into the mosh-pit and pogoed along to the chorus. Had to be done.

Sterophonics…I know everyone thinks they are ‘fantastic’ but unless you are familiar with all their songs and like to rock backwards and forwards mundanely singing along then great. We could only stomach 2 tracks and had to leave, too much of a come-down after Europe I’m afraid so we went to see Bryan Ferry. Despite being older than God, the man still has the pizzazz to bang out the tunes plus do the whistling bit in ‘Jealous Guy’. We then managed to catch Paul Foot on the comedy stage which considering the hour was well attended. So the festival was over, or was it? No it was not! Luckily for all those Sterophonics fans there was a decent pick-me-up to properly end the show. It’s all very well for the ‘Musos’ to dis the DJs but 99 Souls was where the party was at, everyone was there, all ages and we just carried on dancing into the early hours. The atmosphere was one of pure joy and that is what it is all about, entertaining a crowd, getting them moving which is exactly what skeleton-costumed Don Diablo did. So it’s over for another year and we can all hang up our Gibtelecom straw hats, the merry-making is done. Oh hang on, National Day is this weekend…

Rebecca Faller September 2016