Thursday, May 17, 2012

The Lunar Festival...coming 'moon'...



As previously mentioned on the Aid a brand NEW festival promising four days of wonderful music, great food and drink and a magical location, is coming to the Midlands this year. The Lunar Festival is a camping event brought to you by the same people behind both Moseley Folk and the Mostly Jazz, Funk and Soul Festivals. An intimate event (there are just 500 camping tickets in total...that’s less than the typical queue for the bogs at Glasto) it all takes place at the spiritual home of Nick Drake - the Umberslade Estate in Tanworth In Arden. On top of Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Fionn Regan and Scott Matthews there’s plenty of home grown talent on offer too including Boat To Row, The Old Dance School, Goodnight Lenin, Young Runaways, Friends Of The Stars and...as they say in all the best ads...many, many more. 

Speaking about the festival Mike King from Boat To Row said: “We are massively looking forward to this. The line-up offers a mixture of everything that's good about music, lots of new bands playing alongside established acts.” 

John Fell from Goodnight Lenin said: “The Lunar Festival is looking like a great event. We always prefer smaller shows so with a capacity of 500 I think it’s going to be very special.

While Matt Pinfield, from YoungRunaways, added: “It's cool to be involved with a brand new event like this. “We've been a bit quieter than usual as far as gigs this year because we've been living in the studio so it’ll be good to get back on it.”

Mike: “You don't usually get the chance to see such acts on such an closely knitted event. I'm excited to see Fionn and Andy Oliveri (who Ben from the band and I play for).” 

John: “We all love Fionn Regan so that’s a definite highlight for us.” 

Matt: “Well we know a few bands on the bill so it'll be good to catch up with them, maybe drink a couple of beers and compare war stories, the usual stuff.” 

And, being the spiritual home of Nick Drake, there’s the added bonus that a number of acts might roll out some cover versions from the great man’s catalogue.

John: “We will certainly try. At the moment we're in the studio preparing our debut album but we will definitely try to get a Nick Drake cover in the bag. I think most bands will do something.” 

Matt: “I’m not sure about Nick Drake, we may do Beyonce though! We are doing mandatory fancy dress to mix it up though. We've decided on a theme but you'll have to wait and see what we’ve gone for - it's pretty serious.” 

Mike: “We are definitely doing one. A beautiful song called the Fly, one of my personal favourites.” 

John: “Would be a shame not to really.” 

So there we have it, Nick Drake (covers...they're not digging the poor bloke up), Beyonce (who knows, she might pop by), beers and fancy dress...and no Fearne Cotton...guaranteed (Dot Cotton might turn up...she’s a mentalist when she gets on the real ale). What’s not to love?

For tickets and more information on the festival, which runs from June 1 to 4, visit lunarfestival.co.uk

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