Found at: http://www.anguillaguide.com/article/articleprint/2212/-1/134/
|
Bankie Banx's Greatest Moonsplash
|
Anguilla’s internationally-known reggae composer, singer and musician, Bankie Banx, has described his annual Moonsplash festival as a world class performance. He is elated that the show attracts Grammy Award artistes, other leading performers and scores of visitors to the island thus contributing significantly to the tourism industry.
He said his just-ended 15th Annual Moonsplash Music Festival was the biggest so far and cost him around US$86,000. He was particularly grateful to the National Bank of Anguilla for its sponsorship as well as Coors Light, Benjamin’s Group of Companies and others.
|
|
Bankie Banx
|
“It is my obligation to present a high standard of entertainment,” he said at his Dune Preserve retreat at Rendezvous Bay. “You have to have the talent, passion and resilience to make your dreams come true. I am a very resilient kind of guy and I love and enjoy music…When I compose and record a song and it sounds good and right, that is more than half of what makes me happy.”
One of the reasons for describing the 2005 festival as his best was the fact that this year he had reggae Grammy Winners Toots and The Maytals participating in Moonsplash, although in great demand by a St. Maarten promoter for a Caribbean tour.
|
|
View of the Moonsplash stadium
|
“Toots is a very honourable person because someone else would have cancelled his performance fee and give me back the money I paid him,” Bankie said. “In order to get a contract with Toots I had to pay a lot more than what was being proposed for his whole tour and so I had to bargain with the agency.”
Bankie was grateful to all the other artistes who shared in Moonsplash and the large number people who turned up at the performances.
|
|
Smokey and The Uprising Stars
|
He was also grateful to his son Olaide, an Accountant and Lawyer, who managed the show, his other children, his sister Linda and other family members for their support.
Bankie Banx, who will be touring New York and the west coast of the United States later this year, remarked: “Like most people project everything for Christmas and New Year’s Day, I project everything towards Moonsplash. As a musician artiste around here for 30 years, I feel it is my duty to present music in Anguilla at the highest level.”