ValeFest started their 2018 fundraising campaign in November of last year with their first promotional event Valejest – an evening of comedy performed by UoB students, earning money for this year’s charities: Shelterbox and Sifa Fireside.
Beorma Bar hosted the evening which was hosted by Joe Goodsall, who did a superb job of linking together a long list of student comedians who gave the full venue an evening of great Sunday-evening entertainment. Personal highlights were Kat Forbes, another UoB comedian, and the Footnotes society, who performed hilarious sketches giving the night some variety from the stand-ups who dominated the evening. Adam Elmi headlined the show whose dark humour was an excellent end to the evening.
ValeFest déjà vu was an introduction to the musical side of this year’s festival, with five acts who performed at ValeFest playing to a packed Bristol Pear. Matt from The Weathervanes was first on with a selection of acoustic tracks full of crowd-pleasers – Thunderbirds Are Go by Busted being a welcome, if unexpected, surprise.
Argle Bargle, who performed on the main stage at ValeFest 2017, got the crowd going with their upbeat originals such as Heartless, the big band, trumpets and exciting performance getting the audience dancing and having just as much fun in the crowd as they were on stage.
Rylands Heath, second-stage veterans from last year’s festival, were on third, and were followed by Odd Soul, who played a mix of originals from their upcoming EP, as well as covers – Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy going down a treat at the Pear.
Blank Parody closed the show, performing their soon-to-be released single Underachiever which is out on the 2nd of February. They were a great end to a fantastic night of UoB’s talented musicians, and a great way to promote the great charity work ValeFest does, and get the student population excited for their next festival in July.
