So some of you maywell have heard the big exciting news that has been flying around about Brisfest moving to Ashton Court, if you are new to Bristol or have never lived here, then you probably wont understand the signifigance of this news.

you see Ashton Court is pretty much the Mecca land for festivals in Bristol. you see its huge estate which sits just 2 miles outside of the city centre. it is quite possibly one of the most beautiful estates in the south west. it has regularly paid host to big events like the Bristol Baloon fiesta and the sadly defunct Ashton Court festival.

you see the first thing that attracted this thouroughly annoying blonde to bristol was ashton Court festival. it was all the fun of trudging up a great huge hill, desperate not to miss my favourite acts as i would do the usual geeky swatting up on the festival line-up.

I liked that it was run by people who really cared about the line-up and that the prgrams used to be thwacking huge magazines with detailed descriptions as what each of the acts sounded like, introducing me to a wide birth of Bristol acts, such as Mad nomad,  Threehoestwomexicansandatineofspanners, Big Joan, Kid Carpet amongst many others.

The very first ever Ashton court festival was for me a real life changing event, which really kicked open my love of music. I saw skunk Anansie, before they had released their debut album, this is an event that i constantly site as life changing event, if you do not know the band then here is a video of them playing Selling Jesus live in France as I could not find any videos of their perforamnce in 95.

sadly the festival folded in 2007 due to bankruptcy, and so a group of people gathered to form the exciting charitable festival that is Brisfest. This is something that not a lot of you know, but i have been quietly involved with sinse its inception in the back of pub, to now moving back to the motherland of Ashton Court.

The festival had been running in the central location of the Lloyds Aphitheatre which is right slap bang in the middle of Bristol. basically we felt that after completely ramming it out, we felt that it was time for the festival to stretch it legs, you know moving it to somwhere where it could grow its legs.

what the festival offers is basically the chance for local artists to play on a big open stage, getting their music heard by a wider range of people. something I feel is muchly needed for the local scene and anyway we can support the local artists is always a good thing. I mean who wouldnt turn down the chance to perform in front of 1000s of people.

One of my biggest dreams was to appear on the main stage of Ashton Court and that did happen at the last ever Ashton Court dancing on-stage with Kid Carpet in front of around 15,000 people, ok I have weird eccentric dreams.

but I guess what I am saying is that with moving Brisfest to Ashton Court then we can make other peoples dreams possible, maybe nobody else has my dreams, I don’t know. I would kill to play in front of that many people, infarct I would be biting peoples arms off.

Here is some of what the bands on the heavy stage had to say about last years festival, if look closely enough you can see me thrashing away to a couple of the bands, i have recently rediscovered my love for hardcore music.

this years festival is going to be by far the biggest and a dream to bring the festival back to a site of so many hazy days , lets hope we can bring things back with an un doubted bang.

A personal favourite from last years festival, Mr Motivator getting everyone dancing.

Brisfest is not just about music, but it is also representing all form of creativity artistry, i mean we have the most thriving urban arts scene in the Uk, i mean everywhere you walk there is art all over the place. i personally feel that there is no festival that has combined live music and Urban art in quite such a way and really made it work!

tickets are available from the Brisfest website http://www.brisfest.co.uk/, Bristol ticket shop http://www.bristolticketshop.co.uk and all the usual outlets.

you can also apply to perform at Brisfest by e-mailing perform@brisfest.co.uk

Or Volunteer with the festival by emailing volunteer@brisfest.co.uk