By Goya Dmytryshchak
A day-long blues music festival will be held at Newport’s Substation next month.
Newport Folk Club’s Tues Blues group is hosting the West of the Blues fest, headlined by Phil Manning and featuring eight musicians and bands from the west.
The event, also featuring an art exhibition, performance anxiety workshop and open mic session, will support the work of Beyond Blue.
An afternoon concert will feature Cross Town Traffic, Franklin Borg, Liam & Dan, Snakeoil Smith, Indigo and Ted Smith.
Finishing off the night will be Tues Blues, Yolanda Ingley II Band and Phil Manning.
Festival organiser and Indigo vocalist Gaelle Horsley said the whole day had a “blue” theme.
“As I’m also a counsellor and a musician and somebody who suffered from performance anxiety for a long time and had to overcome it, I thought I’ll run something on performance anxiety,” she said. “Then, the open mic … the theme is any genre but the songs have to have the word ‘blue’ in them somewhere.”
Artists and musos exhibiting and performing on the day include Archibald finalist Paul Borg and Twenty Melbourne Painters Society president Ray Hewitt.
Applications are being taken now for the open mic session. West of the Blues is on Sunday, September 15 from noon to 10.15pm at The Substation, 1 Market Street, Newport.
Details: www.nffc.org.au or trybooking
