Trinity Garden Party

Thanks to everyone who came along to this year's EPIC garden party!

We celebrated 40yrs of music in style, with a fantastic array artists performing live. Alongside theatre, workshops, stalls and great food including Rana's Dhaba Junction, offering a choice of delicious vegetarian and non-vegetarian Indian dishes and Roger Moore’s, serving up authentic tastes of the Caribbean.

This year’s event had an exciting backdrop of visual arts; East Bristol Contemporary exhibited in our upstairs Graffiti Room, as part of a wider residency. Jimmy Cauty’s critically-acclaimed ADP installation - seen last at Banksy's Dismaland - re-housed in a specially converted shipping container, chose Trinity its first stop as part of The ADP Riot Tour, which will be visiting sites of historic riots across the country throughout the year.

As well as visual arts, our upstairs Fyfe Hall hosted performances for children and families; Arnold's Big Adventure had everyone singing along to their original music set to a backdrop of shadow puppetry. Cinco Coisas solo-show of dance, play, clowning and improvisation also appealed to the younger Trinity crowd.

Downstairs in the Main Hall, Drumming Workshops provided a positive, enthusiastic drumming session teaching children and adults alike about drumming culture. Pixel Whipped’s amazing array of consoles kept those who wanted a break from the scorching sun entertained with retro-gaming.

Outside, compères Edson Burton and Alice Taylor-Matthews worked wonders together on the Main Stage, making sure the music and entertainment ran smoothly. They also helped to kick-off our Notes for Notes fundraising appeal, aiming to raise essential funds for some much needed capital repair work – you can donate online here.

Trinity music students Omar and Sam kicked off proceedings with some great performances, alongside students from Temple Records. As the day heated up, there were sets from Bristol's Bodywork djs and art rapper Luui, plus psychedelic pop summer sounds from Yama Warashi, to entertain the growing crowd.

The site was bursting at the seams with our capacity reached by 3pm, while Many Monika brought us some punk-rock. Jazz-punk-rockers The Evil Usses took to the stage, ‘gaining one hell of a reputation for their fierce and uncompromising live performances’. With the sun blazing, the garden itself reached capacity, with everyone kicking back to enjoy the hottest day of the year so far.

Trinity residents Bristol Samba’s Bloco Carnavalesco got everyone moving, with the site full and a queue right down Trinity Road. Many could not face the one-in one-out wait, so took to celebrating on the street and setting up on surrounding grassy areas to enjoy the festivities remotely.

The Most Trio featured Mr.Woodnote & Lil Rhys, ‘two of the most notorious buskers Bristol has ever produced’, plus the sumptuous voice of Eva Lazarus. Their funky, fat base-beats and instrumental artistry set the audience in motion once more.

Lionpulse, who came onto the sound-system scene a few years back with their packed-out launch party at Trinity, gave us some great roots, revival reggae and dub sounds.

What better way to end the celebration of 40 years of Music at Trinity then with a feel-good set from pioneering DJ RSD - Rob Smith from Bristol Sound legends Smith and Mighty - who played us out with positive hip-hop, dub, reggae vibes.

We raised £1,400 in donations on the door and, overall we raised a total of £4,500 from the day after costs, which is such an amazing achievement for a free event! This means we can keep developing our in-house community arts event programme.

If you missed it, or you just want to revel in the good-times, check out some images taken throughout the day:

• courtesy of Khali Ackford Photography, see below and here on Facebook.
• courtesy of Jon James (Trustee) here on Flickr.

Thanks to everyone who came along to join us for the Trinity Centre's 40th birthday bash - it couldn’t have been better!

Left to right: Alice Taylor-Matthews & Edson Burton; The Most Trio; some garden revellers; Lionpulse Official. Images courtesy of Khali Ackford Photography.