This year I found myself spending a few days in Ios island again. During the short trip from Santorini to Ios I met in the luggage area of the ship, a young kid from Scotland who was carrying two guitars. When I asked him why he had the guitars with him he told me that he was going to Ios to work as a musician and singer in a bar called ‘Circus Bar’ and invited me to go and hear him perform.
I don’t usually go out in the evenings when I’m traveling and taking photographs because at the end of the day I’m very tired, and all I want is a warm shower and to sit down to study the photos that I have taken and work a little on the internet. But in Ios for the first few days it rained, so I wasn’t very tired. So on the very first night I visited the Circus Bar.
The first thing that struck me was that my new friend is a modest and polite youngster, but when on stage he transforms into a passionate performer who flows with his guitar and his voice (and breaks a few of the strings of his guitars every night ). The other thing that struck me is that the Circus Bar is a bar with mostly live rock music the like of which I have rarely encountered on the Greek islands and what is certain, apart from other things, is that it keeps the tradition of fun alive in Ios.
When I say tradition of course I mean my own personal experience of the tradition I encountered as a teenager for several summers on Ios, since the whole island was an ensemble that usually ended with instruments being played and songs sung from Chora to Mylopotas until dawn. At the Circus Bar you can experience this magical atmosphere of Ios. You can sip your drinks and your beers at very reasonable prices and meet the extraordinary people who are the customers, the artists and the staff who work in the bar.
For the three days I stayed on Ios I was at the Circus Bar every night sitting in my corner smoking outside the Bar, and besides Guy Hamilton I listened to Peter Byrne and Etienne Belin who I liked a lot (especially Etienne with their theatrical elegance) who I would recommend to listen to on the internet or even better go to Ios to hear them.
Circus Bar on facebook https://www.facebook.com/CircusBarIos
And some information about the artists
https://www.facebook.com/guy.hamilton.758
