Ventnor Blog

Isle of Wight PC User Group (IWPCUG) has a long heritage, with their events going back as far 1991.

They’re held on the first Wednesday of each month at 7.30pm at The Riverside Centre in Newport.

The next meeting on, 7 November, will feature a talk by Roy Murphy, talking about the Wootton Bridge Historical web site.

The site was setup to gather all of the historic information about Wootton Bridge for future generations - a worthy task.

Membership of the IWPCUG is a very reasonable £6, with a £1 per meeting charged. If you want to try it out, they say you’re welcome to attend one or two meetings without joining.

Isle of Wight PC User Group. Image: © Wootton Bridge Historical 2005-2008

With the festival season in full swing (despite the wind and rain) we thought you might be interested in an article that appears in the Guardian today.

The subject, Festival Food offerings, is something close to our hearts (we love good grub).

It’s fab to our friends over at Bestival HQ scoring so highly in their great choices of food vendors.

Organiser Ziggy Gilsenan tells the Guardian

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It’s great to see the VentnorBlog Bestival 2007 video scoring high on the Bestival MySpace page.

Filmed and edited by Lucho Limpo, it’s an ideal window into the wonderful world of Bestival for Bestival virgins and a lovely stumble down memory lane for those who’ve been up close and personal with the Best Medium Sized Festival going.

Video after the click. (more…)

Bestival Band competition winners The Shanklin Freak Show took residency at Ventnor Park bandstand yesterday afternoon for an hour or so.

They managed to build up ample anticipation amongst the audience whilst waiting for more equipment to arrive, but once they got going the wait was worth it. More to come on that performance later in the week.

In the meantime, if you missed their performance at the Bestival Band Competition, thanks to Luke Ellison who filmed and edited the event, you can see them via the power of You Tube. See if you can spot Rob Da Bank’s new ident. (more…)

A charity auction for Bestival tickets, which will last for ten days started this morning at 10am on Ebay.

Those lovely people at Bestival HQ have very kindly donated a pair of Bestival 2008 tickets to the Square to Square Charity Cycle Challenge 2008 Appeal. (more…)

Amidst a really good turnout last night at The Venue in Ryde, the winning band and DJ were picked by Mr Da Bank and his jury.

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Don’t forget music lovers and Bestival fans, that tomorrow night sees the grand final of the Bestival Island Band and DJ Competition.

Rob Da Bank and friends will be making up the usual panel of music experts to decide which of the following acts cut the mustard for the Bestival audience in September.

The range, as always and just the Island itself, is pretty diverse, from the likes of The Guy Page Trio, to The Shanklin Freakshow. Magic Octagon (who recently played IW Festival main stage), The Steam Machine and The Kurves all join the lineup.

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Congratulations to the five bands and three DJs who have made it through to the Bestival Bands Competition.

After winning the votes of the public, next week playing in front of an esteemed panel of judges will be the Guy Page Trio, The Shanklin Freakshow (finalists in the IW Festival BOTB Comp), Magic Octagon (who recently won the IW Festival BOTB Comp, The Steam Machine and The Kurves.

Spinning the vinyl to win over the judges will be Jordan Peak (pictured), Mistubishop and Duvstar and DJ Steel. (more…)

Ever keen to see how Island bands are progressing, we went over to the County Press Web site to check out the Bestival DJ and Band competition.

Blimey, how many clicks and pages do you need to go through to get to listen to the DJ’s or Bands? Feels like thousands.

Either the CP got no idea how to provide an enjoyable Web experience, or it’s a really feeble way of trying to get their pages views up :).

The short cut
If you do want to vote for the bands, here’s the quick way to get to do it, to save you from potentially getting RSI from all of those clicks …

Vote for Island DJ’s

Vote for Island Bands

Yes we know that rumours have been awash on the Wight as to what the fancy dress theme will be at Bestival this year - but we can confirm tonight - exclusively on VentnorBlog - that the theme is something very nautical (and naughty if you fancy) - 30,000 freaks under the sea!

It’s party time in a few months time on the Wight and judging on past performance, Bestival certainly know how to throw one.

Every year the theme changes, as Bestival make the record books for the largest fancy dress parade in the world. We wonder whether they’re going to call in the Guinness World of Records this year?
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Dear Bestival gets another mention as a fave of the stars (did you know that Will Young had been to Bestival for the last three years without anyone knowing?).

Dan Hipgrave, former guitarist with British indie rock band Toploader, picks the best of this summer’s music festivals world wide in The Telegraph - one of them being Bestival.

He’s spot on with his comments

What really sets Bestival aside from the rest, however, is the free-spirited crowd that flocks to this weekend funfair.

Read

All of you Bestival ticket holders have got this to look forward to … those who have been slow, regret at leisure, as all of the tickets for this year have just sold out.

We had a ball at Bestival last year, as did our camera-man, Spanish-born DJ, conga player and film-maker, Lucho Limpo.

If after reading the 150 articles that we’ve written about Bestival over the years, you’re still not convinced that it is the best festival going, why not sit back, turn up the volume on your computer and take a walk with Lucho through the crowds of Bestival 2007?

He’s managed to capture is that blissful, confused experience you have wending your way through the wide array of fancy dressed revellers in the wonderful surroundings of Robin Hill Country Park with the sun kissing the back of your neck.

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Beg, borrow (but don’t steal).

If you haven’t got your Bestival 2008 tickets yet, better get a move on.

We hear from Bestival HQ that there are about 150 left and the only remaining outlet with tickets is WightLink.

You don’t need us to tell you how we feel about Bestival, find out yourself this September.

Say, Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn!

We’re hugely excited that the rap pioneers, The Sugarhill Gang, will be playing an UK festival exclusive at Bestival this year.

Soak up some original 1979 video footage after the jump (more…)

Everyone knows Underworld from their Born Slippy track that featured in the 1996 film Trainspotting.

Looks like they’ve had a pretty busy year in 2007 when they played Hollywood Bowl, Central Park and a sell out UK tour.

To get an understanding as to quite how popular Underworld are worldwide, a peak at their MySpace shows they’ve nearly got 100,000 MySpace friends and 1.4m.

This year they’ve be gracing the main stage, as headline act, at Bestival on Sunday.

Video after the jump (more…)

Blimey the list goes on and on …. there’s a fair old few from the Wight, including Blank Beats, Cooly Haste, Goodbye Stereo, Hugo Frusslinky, JC & Angelina, The Kurves, Wight Light Orchestra and of course, The Chancers.

Here’s what our Rob had to say about the offering for this year ….

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Amy Winehouse has been confirmed as the Saturday headline act at Bestival this year.

The nueva-Soul Diva played Isle of Wight Festival last year, but we’d imagine the Bestival would be far more her type of thing - it being a looser atmosphere.

She clocked up ‘f.i.v.e gold rings’ (well five grammys) in 2006 for Back to Black (see vid below). She’s been Best New Artist, had Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
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If you missed the fact that tickets for Bestival are almost sold out and for some strange reason, needed more info before committing yourself to grabbing one of the last remaining tickets, how about taking a butchers at the confirmed lineup of who will be playing on the Wight this September. Don’t forget Saturday headline act to be announced tonight at 7pm.

And yes, as you will’ve guessed from the pic, George Clinton IS coming to the Island - bringing with him all the greats from Parliament and Funkadelic!
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If you haven’t got your tickets for Bestival yet, you’d better get a move on. There are three reasons ….

1. It’s going to be the best festival of the year (natch)

2. The next headline act is going to be announced tonight on VentnorBlog so tickets will probably be snapped up within minutes of this news going live

3. The only place you can buy tickets now is through Red Funnel and Wightlink as all other outlets have sold out.

Check out their websites for more info:
Red Funnel
Wight Link

News has just reached us that the original and best Pop Idol Will Young, will be bringing some pop panache to proceedings and playing a special acoustic set on the tiny Bestival Bandstand.

Pop fans will know that young Will is the record holder for the fastest selling debut single in UK chart history.

His silky tones have propelled him to international stardom and his Bestival appearance is a rare chance to catch him in intimate surrounds.
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A quick reminder - Islander Bestival tickets are available _just_ today, as we’ve mentioned a few times this week.

The acts that have seen announced for Bestival 2008 so far, are splendiferous and there’s more to come too.

Ventnorians can get them from the Winter Gardens. Elsewhere on the Wight, try any of the Isle of Wight Tourist Information Centres (Westridge (just outside Ryde); Newport; Sandown; Shanklin; Ryde; Cowes and Yarmouth). They’re also available at Robin Hill and the Pilot Boat Inn, Bembridge.

The Isle of Wight Council contacted us today to let us know that they couldn’t see VentnorBlog. Given the lack of access to the site, we can only assume that they imagined a mass walkout of council staff if we didn’t fix it, given VB’s apparent popularity there, both inside and outside the press office.

The Council’s Internet content filter had kicked in after we wrote a piece about a band that will be playing at Bestival that contained an Anglo-Saxon word.
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As all of you Portuguese speakers know, Cansei de Ser Sexy means “I got tired of being sexy,” although the Brazilian band is most often called CSS.

Their lead singer, Lovefoxxx, once played a gig with wearing her entire wardrobe. As she sang each song, she removed one piece of clothing, until, on the last song, she was naked and dived off the stage into the crowd. Have to remember that one at the next Ventnor Carnival.

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Transglobal Underground (TGU) are definitely name that a certain generation will relate to.

For those who have no idea what we’re going on about but might be vaguely interested, think ethno-techno and you’d probably be pretty close.

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(Clearly some people aren’t going to like the subject of this post, but hey, it’s the name of the band … what are you going to do? If you don’t like swearing don’t read on!)

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