REVIEW: Coach Party - Ventnor Fringe 19.7.25

THE future of Ventnor has never been less certain. There's no guarantee that the town will still be attached to the Isle of Wight this winter. Who can even say that this big top on a cliff top will survive the night? We've already lost a big chunk of South Coast real estate this summer. Just one landslip away from a watery oblivion.

It's fitting that Coach Party's first Island gig in ages should find them facing up to the angry sea, confident and dressed to the nines. There was a time when Jess would sing "Don't think that I wanna die" while dreaming of a Southampton support slot with somebody indie and average. That's no longer the case.

The new Caramel-y model of Coach Party is trembling with power and potential. New songs sit well with old favourites, the quips come hard and fast, and the potential majesty of this outfit slip into sharp focus. If it isn't Steph bellowing unamplified into the upturned faces of family and friends, it's the quiet boffin Joe working his complicated magic like a street vendor with a leather suitcase full of effect pedal party tricks. And Jess...

...Jess is in the crowd again, thrashing about and whipping up a disco party. She's grabbing for hands to pull people onto stage. "Where the f*** are my girls?" Right here - a dozen or so leaping, stage-invading well-wishers turning  a greatest-hits-before-we-get-greatest hits set into a celebration of a job about to be well done.

"So... will the Island get two number one albums this year?" she asks.

If Wet Leg's posturing gym club of impenetrable in-jokes, bizarre costuming and a frankly weird band dynamic where a founder member can all but stay at home and phone it in can wrestle its way to the top spot, then surely the all-inclusive bonhomie and sparkly spectacle of Club Caramel is a shoe-in. 

Keep watching the skies. And be careful on that cliff path.

Photo: Richard Slaughter.