THE Garden Party festival at Onchan proved to be a great success at the weekend.

Many of the Island's top bands played over the two days - and the event raised a staggering £12,000 for Naseem's Manx Brain Tumour Charity.

There was also a guest appearance by astronauts who travelled on the space shuttle Discovery earlier this year - they presented last night's headliner Davy Knowles with a commemorative picture as his music was played onboard the shuttle.

The astronauts are in the Island as guests of the Tynwald Day celebrations which take place on Tuesday.

Musically the festival was superb. The Island has so many talented musicians and while I was unable to attend the Friday night of the festival I heard very good things about Uber Room and Planes Over Paris in particular. Sadly the latter were performing their last ever gig.

Yesterday I was impressed by the Anna Goldsmith Band who benefited from Simon Campbell on guitar and The Heights who are one of the most original bands in the Island and are surely destined for big things.

I also caught Truman Falls whose acoustic based songs were perfect for a sunny evening.

I have known and been a fan of Davy Knowles for a long time and it is always good to see him back in the Island.

While having success in America in particular, he has always remained a humble and likeable guy.

Last night's performance saw him on stage with Simon Campbell and the Very Very Bad Men, who were his backing band for the night, as well as Christine Collister, Anna Goldsmith and Christy DeHaven on backing vocals.

There is no doubt Davy is pursuing new musical avenues - if last night's show is reflective of where he is at in his career his new music is not as steeped in the blues as it once was.

I will be perfectly honest and say that while he was backed by some very good musicians the gig made me realise how much I miss Back Door Slam - not the session men from America who he tours with, but Isle of Man musicians Adam Jones and Ross Doyle.

The three of them used to be all known as Back Door Slam and they recorded their debut album in the Isle of Man.

The trio played more than 300 shows in America together and they were white hot and while the musicians Davy has played with since may be very good, in my opinion none of them have the spark on stage of the original trio.

I recall so many gigs where the hairs would stand up on the back of my neck listening to them and I also saw them perform in America where many fans saw them as a successor to Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble.

In fact, I would go as far to say their debut album is one of the greatest blues rock debut albums of all time, right up there with Vaughan's Texas Flood. It contains no special guest producers or guest musicians - just three hungry musicians from the Isle of Man out to conquer the world.

But those days are gone and with Davy's much more generic rock sound these days the Vaughan comparison is not one that would fit anymore.

An artist has to follow their own path and I fully respect that and look forward to what Davy does next. But I do miss the strong blues element in his music. Last night Davy may have played a token Red House as an encore but his choice of Neil Young's Cortez The Killer was more revealing.

A few years ago he would be tearing up the place with Otis Rush's Homework, Buddy Guy's Leave My Little Girl Alone or Rory Gallagher's Going To My Hometown in addition to his own brilliant blues rock numbers.

I cannot fault the musicianship from last night's performance - Davy still plays a mean guitar and has an incredible voice - but things have got a lot slicker.

In developing a much more rock sound without the blues side I did feel personally that something has been lost.

However, I also accept hundreds of people there last night probably disagree with me.

Let me know your views by emailing in the comment box below.

Davy did debut the song he has written for the Commonwealth Youth Games but the highlight for me was his completely solo and acoustic performance of Roll Away which saw many in the crowd singing along. 

It's the title track of that first album and still one of his greatest songs.  

All photos by John Gregory