Over recent years the KPMG Castle Nights events at Castle Cornet have become highlights of the summer season in Guernsey with the castle being packed with people enjoying a relaxed evening of music and entertainment, along with plenty of picnicking, at least when the weather is good.
Thankfully for the first event of 2021 the weather was about as perfect as you could hope for with the sun shining down as people began queueing on the castle emplacement to get in an hour before the gates opened.
Upon entering the castle we were greeted by roving minstrel James Dumbelton and his Breton (I think) pipes, giving a traditional feel to the affair, before heading up into the main castle where there was live music on two stages.
With a selection of things on offer I had to pick and chose who I saw and started off at the castle’s south battery where the Guernsey Arts stage has made its home for a good few years, showing casing newer and slightly more alternative acts to an often brand new audience.
Camille Brouard started the evening with a set of songs reworked for ukulele, an often derided instruments which she makes sound genuinely impressive.
As she described them she played a mix of ‘old sad songs and new sad songs’ with a genuineness to her performance that was engrossing and felt hie st so that, even if there were moments it wasn’t quite as smooth as it might be, the audience remained very much on side.
There were a few highlights but one that particularly stood out was Camille’s take on Cher’s Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) and just generally it was great to hear her playing a full set, having only heard snippets at open mic events.
Next up on the Guernsey Arts stage was Lula And Gene, back up to full strength after a solo outing at Chaos, and, while an outdoor sunny event like this wasn’t where I was used to seeing them their indie pop actually felt spot on in the sunny weather, which I didn’t entirely expect.
While still keeping the relaxed feel the duo did up the energy somewhat across a set made up of mostly covers reworked to suit their bass and drums with the highlight coming with the one original they played that closed the set and featured a terrific drum breakdown in the middle.
Moving over to the middle ward of the castle for the nights ‘headliners’, The Space Pirates Of Rocquaine the tone was slightly different with more families gathered with picnic rugs and ready to watch the band who’ve made a reputation for themselves as being extremely popular at these events.
While they had something of a cold start it didn’t take the folky six piece long to warm up with a selection of their by now well known original songs largely about Guernsey and Sark.
Despite the audience being firmly seated and watching on, as the set went on the positive energy only grew with the band feeding off it and making for a typically great fun performance with Lisa Vidamour and Tim Corbett in particular acting as a fun double act on stage during the set.
As the set went on they dropped a few newer songs in, including Oh Caroline that I could see becoming a singalong favourite, and a broken guitar string only briefly derailed things before their new song about Alderney showed som clever little twists on their usual sound.
Closing the set a super upbeat version of their Sarnia Cherie they were called back for a curfew pushing encore of Bad To The Core and even after that I think the crowd would still have been happy with more but it made for a great end to the first event in the Castle Nights series for 2021.
You can see more of my photos from the event on my Facebook page by clicking here.
Tommy Girard 