BRUCE FLYING IN

Klaxon alert – weekend tickets for AVA 2021 are close to selling out! The news that the huge local production is scheduled for a return has gone down a storm with our event-starved electronic music scene who have snapped up passes to the festival in super quick fashion.

AVA 2021 will take place across the weekend of 24-25

September at Boucher Road

Playing Fields and with yesterday’s announcement of restrictions easing a little bit and the phenomenal rate at which we’re motoring through vaccines, surely everything is looking up for this type of revelry to return.

We announced the line up a couple weeks ago, packed with international dance music royalty alongside a focus on local talent.

Performing acts will include Berlin Techno duo Fjaak, the world’s number one electronic act KINK (Live), Helena Hauff, disco queen Jayda G, plus Dutch female forces Carista & KIKI.

Returning to AVA will be the legendary

Optimo, Derry’s all conquering Or:la, italo king Hammer, Cromby and Techno don Sunil Sharpe (inset). Some of the female powerhouses taking to the decks include super-selectors Saoirse and Sally C, plus many more.

We love the addition of Irish hip-hop representation with revered Dublin rapper Kojaque, Aby Coulibaly, Leo Miyagee and Emby all headed for Belfast along with legendary multi-instrumentalist and broken beat innovator Kaidi Tatham and Irish vocalist Gemma Dunleavy.

And beyond the dancefloor, AVA will once again deliver a full programme of art installations and music/art/culture, chill spaces, local food traders, a new cocktail bar experience plus much more.

We saw Bruce Dickenson once, at a railway station somewhere in London, in his pilot’s uniform. It was a strange and surreal moment though to be fair there is little that isn’t strange about his main job as lead singer (inset) of Iron Maiden. The rockers, at the forefront of Britain’s new wave of heavy metal in the 1980s, brought an operatic flourish to the genre covering subjects as diverse as the genocide of Native Americans, the Crimean War and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. And, of course, spandex. Lots of spandex. Anyway, they are responsible for some mighty rock songs such as Phantom Of The Opera (or the one from the Lucozade ad with Daley Thompson, for