The Tribune

By ALESHA CADET Tribune Features Reporter BAHAMIAN artists secured top spots amongst the leading international acts performing this week at the biggest spring break music festival to ever hit the Bahamian shores, according to organisers. The fiery Bahamian musician Funky D is set to take the stage today, and add his creative flavour to the festival venue on Colonial Beach, Paradise Island. The five day festival started on March 5. "When it comes to Bahamian music, I am a fan of Funky D. He is a very good artist and he very well deserves this chance to show his talent to another type of audience like this one. He has this opportunity to expose our music and hopefully they love his performance and are amused by his wild and crazy dance moves," said local fan Jackie Johnson*. Attracting over 2,000 spring breakers, this year's Electric Island Music Festival is being held on New Providence for the first time. Festival organisers said students traveled from over twenty different colleges abroad to watch the headline acts, such as American Rapper Wale, Electro house musician Steve Aoki, Electropop band Passion Pit, and American Rapper Gorilla Zoe. The concept behind the event is to provide spring breakers a chance to enjoy a great vacation while enjoying great live music. "Providing great musical talents from around the globe live, on one of the most beautiful beaches in the Bahamas, we have created one incredible party you don't want to miss, and certainly won't forget this spring," the event website stated. "We are currently in the middle of the festival and so far it is going great. Right now we already had three artists perform: DJ Garcia, DJ Crespo and Rob Banks. We have White Panda, Ben G and our headliner Wale performing tonight. Everything is going real good," said Fabian Fernander, local organiser and owner of the Sandy Slipper. He has paired up with two American companies to execute the festival. It kicked off with a party at Club Luna on Monday night. "We have 2,000 students in town and we had over 1600 people show up at the kick off concert at Club Luna. There were a few locals but mostly spring breakers. It was more of a private party to introduce the whole music festival," said Mr Fernander. He hopes the festival will turn into an annual event. "It says that we are available in the Bahamas to do things of this magnitude and it gives people the best of both worlds. You get to see your favorite artists and also hang out on your favorite island. If everything goes well, we plan to host this concert for a total of two weeks next year," said Mr Fernander.