Diego Pena
The city of Bristol has two faces, day and night. When the sun covers the city, people live their lives as usual, go to work, school or whatever. If you’re lucky you can run into random situations and random conversations with random but lovely characters.
Talking to many people I realised that it is not something unusual to hear that Bristol is a city where creative people explode and collaborate. When the sun is gone and the night arises, Bristol can go to sleep in some areas or it can be frenetic in others, filled with people having fun without carrying about any sort of problems whatsoever.
On the 16th February, I went to Strange Brew to take some photos. The evening started calmly as people were arriving and the place was getting crowded. I was walking around the stage and the place in general getting familiarised and checking any good spots to get some shots.
The stage was full of musical equipment, instruments that I had never seen in my nineteen years of existence, cables, microphones and more cables. I knew then that it wasn’t just a normal gig, it was going to be one that people would enjoy because it was something new… And I know people love new.
Once the place was almost full – and I am talking about actually being full with people having to squeeze to fit – the music started.
I can describe the music I heard at the beginning with words like soft, inspiring, living or just fresh. The music was played by a duo making the sound with a trumpet and what looked like the son of a harp and a guitar.
The feeling of being there listening to them and telling the meaning of those songs without lyrics, allowed you to tell that the songs were created while experiencing different palettes of emotions. You could tell that every song had a story behind it, some of those stories that you only read about in books or hear somewhere else because you can not imagine them, because you don’t know what colour the sun is in those places, how people talk and act, what the feeling of those places being your home is.
I remember taking some photos when I saw a guy standing next to me staring at the weird instrument trying to hear its sound carefully, knowing that after that evening it was going to be difficult to hear it again. I thought about how comforting it is to know that in this city there are people that treasure these little things that different cultures have to offer and yet they are also proud of theirs.
Following the first act, some poetry was read, poems written by a guy in Palestine. They told us how much it meant to him that his writing could travel that far away and that it could be heard by people. Everyone was silent and tried to listen carefully.
I think that sometimes we just don’t think that much about poetry, and we forget that it can contain a lot of power. We forget that just some verses can protect a tiny piece of history from being forgotten, that it can be the solemn proof that the passion living in the hearts of people around the world can be immortal.
The culmination of the night was the show of the Orchestra of Samples, a lovely show that gathered the sounds of different musicians from around the world and mixed them into songs.
Some minutes after their show started, I looked back and was amazed at how people were dancing without caring about anything else. I had the vibe that they were extremely concentrated on it as if it was their way of saying thank you to the guys playing the music on the stage.
They never got tired, they never wanted to stop and, even when the show was over, I saw them leaving the place with a smile. I was right: people love new.
Words and photos: Diego Pena
