Bristol Pride took place today. As usual, I was on hand to help the good people from ShoutOut Radio with their day-long coverage of the event. I wasn’t actually on air much as Ujima was not co-broadcasting the event this year. However, I did spend some time out and about interviewing people and some of the results of that may appear in this Thursday’s ShoutOut show. The above photo (by Caz Milford) shows me interviewing drag Queen, Scarlet Fever. Scarlet’s costume included a full peacock tail made from actual peacock feathers. Scarlet made the entire outfit himself (and yes I did ask about pronouns).

This year Pride was in a new home at the harbourside. The main stage was in the amphitheater in front of the Lloyds Bank building while most of the stalls were in Millennium Square. We had more room than in Castle Park, and it was much drier underfoot. I’m glad it didn’t get too sunny as the black bricks that pave most of the area could have got very hot, but at least we weren’t wallowing in mud. Daryn Carter was interviewed on the show and he said we had 9000 people at the event. It looked like a very diverse crowd. I was particularly pleased to see so many young people wearing trans flags and badges. That bodes well for Trans Pride in September.

One thing in particular that I want to highlight is the online mapping project that my colleagues at OutStories were busy doing this year. That is now launched and you can find the map here. There’s not a lot of trans stuff on it at present, which is in large part down to me not having had time to do it, but there are some 70+ other items mentioned and we’ll be adding to that as time goes on.

Of course the main focus of our day was the music. We get a lot of great acts at Pride. Most of them a singers who work off a backing track. While many of them are very good singers (hello Rozalla), I yearn for people playing actual instruments. Today we had a couple of great bands.

Here I am with Joanne Joanne (photo by Thomas Page). They are an all-girl Duran Duran tribute act. They do a fine job, especially when you consider that the original material is heavily produced and multi-layered which is hard to reproduce on stage. The photo shows me getting a hug from lead singer, Val Gwyther, which is about as close as I will ever get to getting a hug from Simon Le Bon.

My favorite act of the day, however (bearing in mind that I was unable to stay to hear Little Boots and Lisa Stansfield) was this lot, a local rock band called I Destroy.

On the left is Becky (bass guitar); on the right in the shades is Bec (lead guitar & vocals), and Jenn (drums). I was impressed with how tight they were, and it was great to have a proper rock band on stage along with all of the pop material. They work hard too. They are playing a gig in Stokes Croft tonight and are currently touring including gigs in Manchester and London. I’m hoping I can get them on my Ujima show.

Here’s one of the songs they played today.