It's a strange thing that as the Isle of Wight gained two major music festivals, it lost two venues capable of hosting larger acts. While my personal favourite, Ryde Theatre, remains closed with no sign of re-opening soon, I was pleased to see that at the start of the year the other, Ventnor Winter Gardens, started advertising events for the coming year. The last band I saw here were Ash, who chose it to represent 'V'on their A to Z tour in 2009, only months before the venue closed.
So, almost five years later we found ourselves heading towards the venue for 80s pop/reggae band UB40. On arrival we were surprised to find a long snaking queue along the road but moving nowhere. Surprising as the venue had supposedly opened half an hour earlier. Even more surprising was the large (at least for the Isle of Wight) police presence of three officers and half a dozen PCSOs. Last time I looked UB40 fans weren't known for being trouble-makers, but clearly they were expecting trouble. It transpired that the reason for the queue was two-fold firstly there was only a single person checking tickets, and secondly the 700 capacity event had been oversold by over 200 tickets, meaning that there was a good chance that the back half of the queue weren't going to get in, given that tickets were almost £30 a go and a lot of the people had travelled from the mainland that adds up to an expensive trip.
For those of us lucky enough to get into the venue, we were treated to a warm up of reggae standards from DJ Gold Dubs. Then at about 9pm UB40 came on stage. As a child who grew up in the 80s, UB40 are a band who made up the radio 1 soundtrack, so I was looking forward to a sing-along to the hits that underlined my childhood. Sadly this wouldn't include Ali Campbell, the original lead vocalist, as a recent spat and ensuing legal battle for control of the name (which Ali lost) have ensured that there is unlikely to be a reconciliation any time soon. This would have left only one member of the Campbell clan in the band - his brother and guitarist Duncan, however the replacement lead singer is another member of the family, Robin Campbell. Robin's delivery is pretty close to Ali's (as you would expect from a sibling), although a little less warbly. As the band settled into what was a pretty solid run-through of the hits, mixed in with a sprinkling of tracks from their latest album 'Getting Over The Storm'. As expected the older material was better received, and the new music was listened to politely, although there was a clear sense from the audience that they were waiting for the next hit to come along. Not that there was a problem with the new material, it was pretty good, and certainly a match for their earlier work, it's just I think that the audience was there for a sing-along and the new stuff wasn't familiar enough to provide that.
After an hour or so of this pattern, the band switched to a few older ska songs starting with 'Easy Snappin'', and as they moved into this material, a change started to come over them as well. An energy started to feed out from them and into the audience, which in turn fed back to the group on stage - rather than a gentle stroll round the stage, Robin started to dance, the band too started moving (with the exception of the horn section, who had long been the most energetic part of the show since the start). Before long we had a different band on the stage and one that was far more interesting to watch. By the time they returned to their own songs, the raise in game was clearly noticeable, '1 in 10' got the biggest cheer and applause of the night, interestingly the lyrics seem highly apt given the current political state being so similar to the one that the band were formed under. They finished with their crooning classic 'Red, Red Wine' and leaving the stage, and the crowd wanting more.
Fortunately this wasn't the last of the band as after a little pantomime with the drummer pleading with the rest of the band to come back, they came back on for another four songs, and this time even the new song played got the crowd going. It's a shame that it took the band an hour to hit this stride as if they could have captured this energy at the start then it had the potential to be one of the best shows I'd been to in a long while, as it was it was still very, very good.
As I type the fallout from the ticket sales is still running, with various people blaming each other. One thing that is clear is that the problem has clearly left a lot of bad feeling with UB40's management, which will no doubt spread the word and harm the chances of other bands coming to the venue. Hopefully they can sort out these issues in future and rebuild the trust for promoters and performers, as it's a good venue that has the potential to provide a stage for touring bands that the Isle of Wight is sorely lacking.
FUTURE GIGS
sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.