Happy Tenth Birthday to FarGo!
Feature
I do hope that you are already aware of the celebrations planned for the 10th birthday of FarGo Village in Coventry on Saturday 28th & Sunday 29th September.
On the first day, The Primitives headline the performance side, supported by 'Hot Music Live Presents' featured bands Batsch, Project Overload & Duck Thieves plus Special Brew (one of whose members has several tracks on HMLP), The Bellows & Bobbie Dazzle.
On Sunday it's another HMLP featured act, the Dirt Road Band, headlining (and earlier they have a Q & A) with Clemency supporting plus Amit Dattani, Willow Taiwo, Coventry Poet Laureate John Bernard & Band and The Swaps (who again feature a member who is part of HMLP).
And that's just the music: please check out their website for the full lineup plus details of which events require tickets (which can be found at: http://www.fargovillage.co.uk/whats-on)
Over those ten years, I imagine many of you have attended gigs at FarGo: whether at the Big Comfy Bookshop (now longer in operation) or in The Box, Commonground, Just Dropped In Records, or the Twisted Barrel.
Making excellent regenerative use of former industrial facilities, FarGo has so much to offer, but is constantly aware of the issue of being just that little way out of the city centre: like all of Far Gosford Street and the other historic streets cut by the ringroad, it has experienced the negative effects of the psychological barrier created: despite the walk being actually quite a short one.
These are reasonable concerns but to me somewhat balanced by the heritage of the street in terms of music venues over the years; the Beer Engine, the original location of The Empire and the Hand and Heart and even more so because it is arguable that the slight separation contribute to the atmosphere at FarGo and differentiates it from the problems too many of the venues in the centre faced.
It's this friendly, safe gig experience I hope many of us have had there and its associated sense of community amongst the varied businesses grouped together & forming a close knit entity rather than simply being in proximity to each other that I discussed with FarGo General Manager Holly Hewitt today (yes you will recognise that name as she is also a talented musician whom we have covered in surprisingly many contexts).
She kindly took a few minutes out of overseeing FarGo's hosting of Coventry's River Festival (the main musical performance today being Wes Finch & Ben Haines in The Box which I greatly enjoyed) and arguably it's these events where FarGo shines the brightest: they certainly make best use of all the resources & spaces.
It's clear that these high days excite her & the rest of the FarGo family: the one we were part of, getting ready for the Birthday celebrations & the recent hosting of Pride all were cited as particular highlights.
Even so, there was far more musical activity going on at FarGo than even I was aware of. The huge number of Joe Colombi's Sink or Swim promotions were known (how could I miss them?) but other promoters use the spaces too: for example their Sonic Boom show on 25th October is actually promoted by The Tin with Deliaphonic.
More good news is that the Commonground hosted Friday night sessions which veer towards DJs and more experimental music are continuing: hopefully funding concerns are being remedied.
What I didn't know was that they are offering Flat Badger a space to develop a different sort of open mic with live backing: this starts next week (alongside the FarGo record fair). Let's hope this goes well and doesn't suffer from the problems which bedevil so many open mics.
In terms of the broad appeal of FarGo, Holly was candid at how the atmosphere works best Wednesday to Sunday. So many businesses are run by sole traders who close on Mondays & Tuesdays for their own recuperation. One response to this is that Holly & her team are opening a market (not unsurprisingly in FarGo's Market Hall) where 30 creative businesses have stalls to sell their wares but FarGo manage it all so they do not have to staff the stalls themselves: with occasional DJs to heighten the shopping experience.
I wonder how many people realise that there are actually forty-one businesses currently in the Village? I'd have guessed fewer but several don't have frontages onto the public spaces. One such is new arrival Noiseworks which has moved in from the opposite side of Far Gosford Street but now deals in repairs only rather than sales.
The team are very aware that the danger of having such a successful 2024 is that maintaining that high level of interest & dynamic in 2025 will require thought & hard work and are already onto this: devising new events based around "food & music: that's what people like: that's what people come for" but also more dance, building on activities for skateboarders and visual art exhibitions.
FarGo self-defines as businesses who are "fiercely independent" which I admire. Standing out against the predations and banalities of globalised chains and retaining senses of autonomous creativity: and creating a communal safe space to foster these. So although they may be fierce to defend their values, they are also very community minded: and it's this which creates the palpable feeling you get there & why original music of extremely diverse formats can be played in environments where artists & audiences feel relaxed.
FarGo worries about the distance from the city centre. Commercially, I'm sure they are right to do so, but I think that it also brings advantages. I honestly don't think you could build a community which works so well any further in. The slight sense of separation may well be a major advantage In that respect.
However as we've seen FarGo do not deal in complacency & neither should those of us who value what they are doing. The Birthday weekend will be spectacular & needs support: but so do all the other days it's open.
I raised my thoughts on the sense of community at FarGo with Holly & think that I'll leave you with her thoughts exactly as she articulated them.
"There's so much going on. Everyone's so friendly: you're bound to meet someone & talk to someone and find out what's going on in Coventry: like stuff going on at the LTB or The Tin and other such cool little venues . There's great coffee, great cakes, lots of vegan food available… there is that level of generosity, caring about each other and wanting to see everyone do well: that is definitely very prevalent & is what makes it have heart, makes people want to stay here. There are people who have been here the full ten years."
