All posts tagged: festival

Jamaican Music and Food Fest

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The pervasive cultural energy of Jamaica makes a triumphant return to Jamaican Music & Food Festival after a sell-out festival in 2016. This second audacious celebration will feature highly- charged performances from international headliner and Jamaican reggae superstar Bushman, and British-born artist Marvin Priest, son of Maxi Priest, alongside a top line-up of Australian talent all in one beautiful dockside location. Jamaican Music & Food Festival explores the rawest and realest corners of Jamaican culture with a uniquely Australian melting pot of world-class reggae, dancehall, ska, roots and dub talent over five stages; Fasmwa with More Judgement (Sydney), Basmati (Queensland), Mumma Trees and General Justice (Perth), PBS’s most respected radio mob Babylon Burning PBS host Jessie I, Top Ranking and Mohair Slim plus the strongest line- up of Reggae Queens Australia has ever known from Systa BB to Sista Itations, Miss Fee to pioneering DJ and absolute Boss Nadine King, infamous for supporting the likes of Lee Scratch Perry, Mad Professor and Sly and Robbie. 2017’s festival will see even more bars serving fine Red Stripe …

Espresso Martini Festival

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Following the sold-out success of last year’s Mr Black Festival of the Espresso Martini, they are bringing it back bigger and better to Melbourne’s Meat Market this November 03-05. This year will see the Meat Market transformed into six-bar cocktail village where you can enjoy caffeinated creations from some of Melbourne’s best specialty coffee roasters, bars and coffee shops. Start with the MR BLACK COFFEE SHOP – White Russian slushie, anyone? Or perhaps Mr Black’s OG Espresso Martini topped with a donut is more your jam. They’ll have their usual MAIN BAR with some less-than-usual Espresso Martini variations including the Coffee Nut Espresso Martini if you’re feeling a little fruity. Windsor’s favourite JUNGLE BOY are taking over the TIKI BAR in the Garden and if you search hard enough, you might find the SPEAKEASY BAR created by Melbourne institution the Everleigh Bottling Co. If (strangely) coffee isn’t quite your thing, they have a GIN & TONIC BAR presented by Tanqueray and ICY COLD BEERS from Holgate Brewing. Enjoy some delicious food from FANCY HANKS, THAT ARANCINI GUY, TOASTA & CO, ZEUS …

The Glen’s Your Market Festival

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To celebrate the launch of their new fresh food market hall, The Glen in Melbourne’s south-east is gearing up to host their Your Market Festival with the culinary event highlighting Melbourne’s thriving and diverse food culture. The free festival from Thursday 19 October to Sunday 22 October includes four days filled with cooking demonstrations, kids entertainment, giveaways and tasty samples to enjoy. MasterChef contestant and renowned ‘golden ball dessert creator’ Michelle Lukman, Chef Adam D’Sylva from CBD restaurants Coda and Tonka and “The Wholehearted Cook” Dani Venn will showcase their famous and favourite recipes and share their tips to recreate their delicious dishes at home. Across the weekend kids will love rolling up their sleeves and getting involved in workshops with Andy Trieu, the Kitchen Ninja from SBS’ Kitchen Whiz and there will also be fairy floss, a food-inspired balloon artist and colouring stations thanks to Crayola. To make cooking at home even more convenient, The Glen’s complimentary Produce Butcher will also be on hand to help with chopping, dicing and preparing fresh fruit, vegetables …

MICF Review: Nikki Britton is Romanticide

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We recently head along to check out super face-paced, anti-romance comedy – Nikki Britton is Romanticide as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. From the moment we arrived, we were hit with hilarious, laugh out loud comedy from a lady that says everything we are all thinking as she shares her own true stories about dating, single life, getting older and the mysteries behind life. Every single girl within the room caught themselves out nodding along as her continuous comment “This doesn’t happen to normal people” reminds them of their your own cringe-worthy stories. Being that they are all her own true stories, it does get emotional at times as she describes a heart-break and unbroken hope for true love but always lifts the crowds moods quickly in her hysterical fashion even if that does involve acting out seeing her ex and then falling into a tower of Tim-tams, which quickly melted under her. Nikki tied her performance together with a continuous reference to the two characters that she is in life – a …

MICF Review: Burn the Witch

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Last week we checked out Melbourne International Comedy Festival show Burn the Witch on it’s opening night at the Butterfly Club, a tale set in a small English Village in the 1650’s, a village which keeps experiencing the mysterious disappearance of their children. Witchhunter General Dunlop and his comical, cockney assistant, Jennifer are engaged to get to the bottom of the conundrum and take the audience on a whodunnit style journey to get there. Written by and starring Martin Dunlop and Bec Petraitis, Burn the Witch has a great story to tell, a story that unfolds naturally for the audience with intelligent jokes, ironic humor and energy in abundance. The acting was brilliant, both Martin and Bec really engaged with the audience, and continued to hit the mark with their constant, sometimes dark, humour. For us, the speed of the execution was the only let down, particularly at the 10pm timeslot, the narrative moved from scene to scene at lightening fast pace, which made it a little hard to follow. And did they end up …

MICF Review: Songs in the Key of Awesomesause

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Matt Kilpa’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival show starts with an introduction song which instantly makes us think of the Mighty Boosh, and it’s a great way to describe Songs in the Key of Awesomesauce, sort of inspired by Flight of the Conchords, throw in a touch of the Boosh-style quirky delivery – and mix it with some cool, original material, for 45 minutes of laughs. One man, a guitar, and a bunch of funny songs. Matt’s debut solo show show is pretty fast paced, the songs are nice and short, just long enough to be punchy, but not too long that the audience drifts off, as he very easily moves to the next subject matter. Our personal favourites were the initial workings of his ‘Captain Planet the Musical’ project, where everyone knows that Planeteer Ma’Ti has the lamest power – the power of heart, a topic that any kid that grew up in the 90’s knows about, a parody set to the Dolly Parton classic, Jolene (about a certain red-haired politician), and a song about …

MICF Review: Just Like Buddah

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Last week we were invited along to check out Anthony Jeannot’s 2017 Melbourne International Comedy festival show – Just Like Buddah. In a way there were elements taken from last year’s show – Rage Against the Manchild, signature elements which sort of set Anthony apart from his fellow performers like his entrance.. he doesn’t really have one, this year, just popping up randomly from the back row to introduce himself. There also was plenty of his usual self deprecating, sweet style of humour, but this year the delivery was injected with a lot more confidence, so the show was sharper, more on point. Some of the jokes from last year were reworked into the new show, but the fresh material in Just Like Buddha takes the audience though trips to Sweden (and other types of trips), Anthony’s date with a Doomsday prepper, and the perils of trying to meditate with an over excited, anxious mind. All the kind of interesting, engaging tales that seem far out, but are relatable enough that the audience always has …

MICF Review: No Tips For Keith Cheng?

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Guest reviewer: Shannon Murphy On Wednesday night, we were invited to check out Keith Cheng’s debut Melbourne International Comedy Festival show “No Tips For Keith Cheng?”. This culturally diverse show was MC’d by Melbourne’s own Damian Cosgriff, whose punny goodness and one liners warmed up the crowd, before support act, Singaporean import, Wei got the show rolling. Our introduction to our main act advises that Hong Kong born Keith, has been a regular on the Brisbane comedy scene and his talents have previously seen him as a Finalist (2012) and Runner Up (2013) in the Queensland division of Australian’s biggest open mic comedy competition, Triple J’s Raw Comedy.  Keith’s arrival to the stage was facilitated via a fist bump with the MC, with Cheng confessing it’ll be the only time he gets to successfully punch a white guy. Cheng pushes the envelope on taste with his self proclaimed “Terrible Jokes of The Night”, a title that says it all and garners gasps, chuckles and full out laughter from the audience.  A walk out at this …

Johnston St Fiesta

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Explore the sights, sounds and delicious smells of Latin America at the Hispanic Latin American Festival. From November 19 -20, Johnston St will be turned into one giant carnival with street dancers, Latino food stalls, free dance classes, DJ’s,  live entertainment and of course plenty of jugs of sangria. This colourful festival always sees a massive turnout by locals and latinos alike so we recommend getting there early. When: 21 November – 22 November 2015 Where: Johnston St, Fitzroy Visit the website here.