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THEY came, they rocked and they conquered. Music fans on the island can’t get enough of Trib Festit would appear and they arrived in their thousands to pitch up, picnic and party on the grass.
It was the same old, same old and the organisers, it was rumoured, weren’t expecting as big a turnout as previous shows but were pleasantly surprised as they packed them in.
It really was a game of two halves. Families with young children chilled out as best they could in the sunshine laying blankets down and feasting as the little ones boogied away to their look-alike and sound-alike pop stars pretending to be Katy Perry and Rihanna.
Come lunchtime, the sounds got a little more mature with a barrage of Britpop and a decent help of Stereophonics from the aptlynamed act called Stereo Tonics.
By sundown, the merchandise tills were still ringing and the party really got rockin’. The best fun was watching the crowd stumble around in a merry haze as a Great Pretender almost pulled off a fair version of Freddie Mercury by mincing it around on stage like a Queen at a royal gathering.
I’m not sure how they came up with the running order but putting the Bryan Adams band on last instead of dashing David Bowie (great Bowie-esque talking voice by the way) where we could have joined together to pay homage to the recently- departed superstar would have made more sense to this reviewer.
However, by that stage of the night they could have put me on doing my party-turn Drifters routine and I doubt anyone would have worried.
The acts gathered at the end for one last sing-song and everyone went home merry in more ways than one. See you in October for a Trib Fest IV rerun.
A spokesman for the touring British acts said: “We would like to thank the great audience, you guys rocked and also a big ‘thank you’ to Trib Fest: Bahrain for organising this great event. We are so proud of playing and sharing the stage with all of the musicians that performed.”
Until next time.
– Stan Szecowka
