• Holland And Barrett Vitamins Gibraltar Offer

Sep 05 - Revamped Music Festival Proves To Be As Popular As Ever With The Audience

It felt like an 80s and 90s throwback at this year’s MTV Presents Gibraltar Calling festival as revellers sang along to old favourites they still remember the words to from when they were first in the charts.

The two-day revamped music festival proved to be as popular as ever with an audience of all ages who partied away until the early hours at the weekend to a slate of international artists who performed on the Rock.

Local bands Afterhours and The Undesirables 141 kicked off the event on Saturday afternoon, with Jetstream and Angelwings drawing some of the biggest crowds at The Classic Stage.

The Amazons, Hinds and Charlie XCX performed some of their top tracks, followed by a DJ set by Jonas Blue and an energetic performance by Years & Years at the MTV Main Stage.

Meanwhile Rozalla, Black Box and the Village People got the crowds hyped up at the Classic Stage before the headliner Ricky Martin entertained and got everyone to “shake their bon bon”.

DJ Steve Aoki finished off the night’s event with a one-hour set with his trademark cake smash at the end of his set, together with Charlie XCX.

The following day people were worse for wear as they prepared for another day in the sun and watching their favourite groups perform.

Once again, local bands The Layla Rose Band, Come in Leon and Reach kicked off the day’s performances.

The Classic Stage had a major throwback to the 80s as Go West, Glen Matlock and Band, Midge Ure and 80s pop icons Bananarama drew the crowds in, with excellent audience participation during “Venus”.

The MTV Main Stage saw the likes of The Vaccines and Kaiser Chiefs, who returned to the Rock for their second performance.

Clean Bandit and Bastille had the crowds going to their big hits, while Tine Tempah had everyone dancing to “Mamacita”, “Text From Your Ex”, and “Written In The Stars”.

Sunday night’s headliner Craig David took the partygoers back to the late 90s with old favourites like “Fill Me In”, “7 Days”, “Rise & Fall”. This was part of his TS5 tour as a DJ, after having performed in the clubs across the world including Los Angeles, New York, Ibiza and Paris.

The throwback theme continued as Fatboy Slim finished off the weekend’s music festival by keeping partygoers dancing until 2am which an excellent one-hour set.

Despite the earlier criticism of the event and the organisers on social media, those who attended enjoyed the weekend and the performances, although exact numbers of ticket sales have not been revealed to YGTV yet.

The Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said: “Wow, it was a fantastic Festival and it's clearly going from strength to strength. We will no doubt learn lessons this year as we do each year to make the Festival even better next year.  I really want to thank everyone who worked so hard to produce and deliver such a brilliant event.”

{fcomment}