Inside America’s fastest-growing music festival with beachside bars and NO portaloos

OFFER me the choice between free VIP tickets to a three-day rock festival or a weekend sticking forks in my eyes and the cutlery drawer wins every time.

It’s not that TRNSMT, Glastonbury, Coachella and the rest aren’t amazing events packed with fantastic acts.

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It’s just that . . . well, I’d rather watch them in dry clothes, in a cosy house with a beer in my hand that didn’t cost me eight quid.

That way, you don’t need to park a mile from the living room. You don’t get someone else’s eight quid beer poured over you when their favourite tune comes on.

You’re not forced to lie in a tent with a rock sticking right into your hip while outside the rain tips down and threatens to flush you and your rucksack into the next field.

So at the risk of sounding older than the superstar in question, I’d watch that Elton John set from a couple of weeks back every day of the year; but on iPlayer, without having to pay a week’s rent to stand next to someone yawling Crocodile Rock out of tune in my ear on one side and some halfwit letting off a distress flare on the other.

However, offer me the chance to spend a holiday wandering from beach bar to hotel poolside watching a band or two in between cocktails?

Now you’re talking. That’s a festival.

And that, music lovers, is what the Fort Myers Island Hopper Songwriter Fest is all about.

It’s about as far removed from our idea of a mass-participation music event as it’s possible to get.

It’s relaxed, it’s happy, if you fancy a cheeky wee swim it doesn’t have to be in the nearest puddle — plus, 90 per cent of its shows are free.

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Island Hopper is one of the USA’s fastest-growing gatherings of singer-songwriters and having wandered around a week of shows last year, I can confirm it’s an absolute joy.

It moves around the south-west of Florida, from the stunning island of Captiva, then back on land to Cape Coral, downtown Fort Myers and the city’s fun-packed beach area.

Stacks of little gigs, from morning till night, spread across ten days in late September; a non-stop party for locals and tourists alike.

Now, at this point I have to confess that the country and Americana on offer isn’t really my musical thing.

But that doesn’t matter much when the vibe around it all is such good fun, because Island Hopper has a far more sociable feel about it than any of our giant festivals.

Tens of thousands, crammed in shoulder-to-shoulder and all facing the front, straining for a proper look at a band phoning it in because it’s the fourth outdoor gig of the week?

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No thanks — give me a singalong at the Pink Shell Hotel anytime, give me its pool packed with punters and the Gulf of Mexico glittering like liquid diamonds just behind the stage.

This year, it all kicks off on September 22 on Captiva — about 40 minutes drive across the Causeway Bridge from Fort Myers — and ends on October 1.

And it feels like it’ll be a real celebration after a solid year of recovery from Hurricane Ian, which devastated the area days after the bands left town last time.

I was back over in March and wrote then about the community’s remarkable efforts to rebuild and get open for business in time for high season, which kicks off pretty much when Island Hopper comes around.

From late September through to February is when Fort Myers comes alive.

That’s when what they call the Snowbirds arrive, flocks of visitors from the northern states looking to escape their harsh winters. It’s when baseball giants the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins arrive for training camps, bringing armies of fans with them.

With temperatures rarely dropping below 25°C (77°F) and humidity at its lowest, it’s a beautiful time to be in a beautiful part of the world — and being there while Island Hopper’s in full flow is a bonus.

But don’t just take my word for it. Over a post-set beer at the Pink Shell last year, the boys from English country outfit Essex County — brothers Kieran, Nate and Mark Bass — were already looking forward to going back.

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Kieran said: “We love it here and we’re already booked in again.
“The crowd and the culture’s so much different from other festivals. You can make them laugh like as if you were at home. You can just sing your song and talk rubbish or whatever.

“On a big stage, you’re just sort of playing to the crowd. You can’t talk to people when they’re so far away. So it’s nice to be intimate now and again, you know?”

I do, me old son, I very much do.

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