Flaming June and Festival time is upon us and coming up this weekend is the Isle of White with headliners Biffy Clyro, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Kings of Leon. Download sees Linkin Park, Aerosmith, Avenged Sevenfold and Status Quo – the rock and metal fest with 3 days of axe wielding mayhem, plenty of sweat, beer and leather and a chill out area in the woods if you want to give your ears a rest from those Marshall amps turned up to 11.

The third 1970 Isle of Wight festival in 1970 was a five day marathon with non-stop performances from some of the greatest pop musicians including the Doors, Hawkwind, Joan Baez, Ten Years After, Joni Mitchell, The Who, Free, Chicago and the Moody Blues. And of course Jimi Hendrix also played at the festival just 3 weeks before his untimely death at the age of 27. At the height of the flower-power era, 600,000 music fans came from all over the world to chill out in the fields of the Isle of Wight. Free love, communal living and mind bending substances prevailed as did the wind which blew the sound sideways across the venue so the sound system had to be augmented by Pink Floyd’s PA. 

Glastonbury at the end of June features Arcade Fire, Metallica, Kasabian, Elbow, Dolly Parton and Robert Plant. Some great line-ups this summer and of course not forgetting our very own NEWfest14 on 28th June featuring bands who will be supporting the headliners, the Barflys and who have all played at Newport Open Mic. 

Tuesday's Open Mic at the Navy Club saw some of the great musical talent we have in and around Newport with a crowd of over 70 in attendance. Ben Garrott was MC for the night and in charge of the sound desk and 11 year old Jay Harris started the evening off with "You Can't Always Get What You Want", great vocals, harmonica and guitar playing from this young Mick Jagger lookalike. 
 

Ed Conway and the Unlawful Electric Men who were Paul Crewe, Si Carswell and Jon Thompson made a long overdue appearance promoting their recently released debut album Rope or a Ladder. Not quite folk songs in a Metallica style which Ed promised but a delightful mix of self penned and traditional songs as well as the opener by Welsh band The Alarm called Deeside.

Robbie Pilgrim and Jobe Spencer, looking ever more comfortable on stage together, played some delightful instrumentals. A terrific interpretation of Tom Petty’s “Free Falling” preceded a beautiful self penned number by Jobe. Along with Jay Harris these two 16 year olds have grown enormously in confidence on the Open Mic stage. 

Vinyl Tap has been busy rehearsing recently and with Alan Lane on guitar and Remynie on drums they ripped through some classics with Alex, Cath and Jude including “Tainted Love” and the Jam’s “A Town Called Malice”. Our MC kindly commented that the bands combined age was probably greater than the whole of Newport added together! Thank you Ben. 

 Nameless was the next band up with Brendan Quigley on lead guitar, Charles Moore, guitar and vocals, Charles Williams on bass and Andrew Nicholls on drums. These four friends have been playing together for about 10 years and my favourite song from them tonight was Joan Baez’s “Diamonds and Rust”.  

Following their first appearance at Newport Open Mic last week Underneath the Cocktail Bar were back again playing to a packed house. Only 7/9ths of the band were present tonight with saxophonist and keyboard player missing but once again an outstanding set from 6 exceptionally talented musicians in their late teens and early twenties with older “godfather”, John Cooper. The addition of trumpet and trombone in this band is superb and the songs “Treasure” by Bruno Mars and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” were once again outstanding. A couple of acoustic numbers with vocalist Ash Tranter completed a foot stomping set.

Gaz and The Tones appearing at Newport Carnival this weekend and NEWfest at the end of the month, brought the evening to a close with their own self penned songs as well as Cornershop’s “Brimful of Asha”. One of the best night’s of musical entertainment we’ve had in a long while with Dean, all the way from Peterborough, collecting the raffle prize. Not many Open Mic venues in the country could boast what we had tonight. Great music, laughter and friendship all round and happy 93^rd birthday to Prince Philip!