If You Can't Make Lounge On The Farm, Where Else Can You Get Your Canterbury Music Fix?

So maybe you've booked a holiday in July and you can't make Canterbury's biggest annual festival. But surely there must be somewhere else in the city to hear some live music?

Lounge On The Farm is Canterbury's biggest annual festival and has been growing year on year since its inception in the noughties. This year is set to be the best yet but for other dwellers in the city, is there anywhere else to see some live music?

 

Canterbury's peak period for music came in the 1970's. The Canterbury prog-rock scene was immensely popular at the time with bands like Camel and Caravan leading the pack. Since those heady days though, the city has been criticised for not producing enough new music.

Take a look at the back of any music magazine at the gig listings and you won't find a Canterbury or Kent venue very often, indeed take a walk through the high street and you'll struggle to find a venue where even a medium sized band could play.

 

This seems bizarre with the cities dense population, half of whom are students, and it's reputation as the city with the most pubs in a square area in the UK.

Recently, the city has been improving in this area but it's still nowhere near the hub of music other student cities, such as Brighton, now are.

 

The two universities either side of the city have helped this cause. Christ Church and Kent have flooded the area with students, as aforementioned, and the local businesses are finding ways to incorporate live music in their weekly schedules.

One example is The Seven Stars pub, who have now started putting on regular music nights once a week. A bartender at the pub said: "Canterbury has long been the last place people think of when it comes to music. We've always wanted to have this element in the pub and now, although small, hopefully we can kick start something."

 

The Ballroom logo

Other bars have taken up the mantle with The Ballroom, formally The Orange Street Music Club, hosting acoustic evenings regularly.

The loss of nightclub Studio 41 was a blow to the area, but with long standing clubs Chill and Chemistry more popular than ever, and with a greater variety of themed nights, Indiecate at the latter was recently voted the best club night in the city, the nightlife in the city is in a good place.

 

This year's Summer Ball line up

Indeed the new Student Union, set to replace the now demolished club, looks set to continue the music evenings recently organised by the current SU, however these have so far been sparsely attended.

 

The annual Summer Ball event at Christ Church is the one occasion in the calender which the university can claim to put on a proper concert. This year Professor Green headlines with some other great acts on the bill, and hopefully this will convince other acts, and the university, to put on other similar events throughout the year.

Kent university are slightly ahead in this respect with their former student Ellie Goulding playing last year as a homecoming concert.

So hopefully things are moving in the right direction, but we need more local bands to break into the mainstream to help things along. So people of Canterbury; pick up a guitar or synthesiser and make some noise.