Hard to believe that it’s all over for another year but CeltFest 2022 was an amazing way to end a brilliant VicFest 2022!
Over five weekends at the wonderful Victoria Hotel in Beeston, just outside of Nottingham, The Hands On Pub Company in conjunction with Kellys Heroes hosted twenty different acts covering genres including Folk Music, Latin American, Reggae, Bluegrass, Blues, Singer Songwriters and, of course, Irish music.
The festival was our first VicFest since 2019 and the first one without the guidance of Neil Kelso, the man with the vision of a Live Music festival which would be free of charge but would be interwoven with ways to raise money for charity from donations/ tombola/ raffles/auctions/ ticketed food events and more!
Neil organised over two decades worth of festivals and gigs as The Vic’s owner and landlord before he passed away but his love of music has left us the legacy of a festival which is close to our hearts and a charity which has benefitted from people’s generosity. The John Van Geest Cancer Research Project is an internationally renowned charity focusing on cancer research into diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment and all proceeds from VicFest go towards supporting them.
With the enthusiasm, vision and support of Linda and Hannah, Neil’s family, and the incredible staff of The Victoria, this year’s VicFest took place over the hottest summer since 1976. Temperatures nudged the mercury higher and higher until it peaked at 39 degrees outdoors and behind the bars and in the kitchens it was sweltering! Thankfully the marquee sheltered us all from the ferocious heat and we were even grateful for the breeze that rolled down the train tracks, moving the heated air away for a moment or two.
Through it all, VicFest 2022 was an even bigger affair than ever before with an additional weekend of bands bringing the total number of live acts to twenty- and for the first time Kellys incorporated CeltFest into the event as well!
CeltFest 2022 was a mixture of Kellys Heroes playing a more traditional side of Irish music before we branched out with something slightly different for this year. Neil Kelso was such a lover of the music of Van Morrison that we wanted to represent it in the festival but our budget doesn’t quite stretch to those lengths so we invited our friend, Iain Sparks, to come along and perform his Van the Man show.
We knew he would keep the audience up and dancing!
The CeltFest craic began with people dancing to the Jigs and Reels of Kellys, while their sets were laced with ballads plus plenty of songs to sing along with- and sing along you did!!
As early evening sneaked up on us Iain Sparks began to regale listeners with the songs of Van Morrison and impress everyone, not just with his amazing voice, but with his expertise on guitar too before wowing everyone with some very impressive harmonica playing!
Iain duly obliged towards the end of his set as people threw requests at him and so everyone danced and sang to favourites by Roy Orbison, Mick Hucknall and many others until he came back for an encore, joining everyone on the dance floor as he sang Elvis Costello’s Oliver’s Army…
This year’s festival is barely done and we are already making plans and discussing ideas for the summer of 2023 but just for now we’ll leave you with a little reminder of 2022 and the fun we had.
A huge thank you to all of you who came along and supported the festival. We can’t wait to see you again soon. Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbours and lets KEEP MUSIC LIVE!