Come the first weekend in June, the Lunar Festival will return to the scene of last year’s triumph at the Umberslade Estate in Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire in the West Midlands. Given that Tanworth was the childhood home of celebrated musician and songwriter Nick Drake and Lunar Festival’s fast growing reputation for creating the most gentle, intimate and magical of festival experiences, it is a perfect union of setting and event.
As Lunar Festival unveils its first headliners and support acts for 2015, the line-up promises to be everything and more than last year’s impressive bill in terms of its tremendous diversity, quality and colour. Friday’s headline artists will be Tinariwen, who brought the North African desert blues of the Tuareg to the rest of the world, and a group from Manchester, England who are often cited with the epithet “the greatest band in the world”, The Fall.
Then on Saturday there will be the indestructible former Dr Feelgood guitarist and all round good guy Wilko Johnson and Public Service Broadcasting, a band whose mission statement is to “teach the lessons of the past through the music of the present” and who splice archive film clips and radio broadcasts with an explosive soundtrack of krautrock and synth pop to do exactly that.
Whilst Sunday will play host to the quite breathtaking live experience that is the Sun Ra Arkestra – as they continue to promote the musical message of the legendary jazz composer and bandleader Sun Ra with their febrile swirl of free jazz, electronics and cosmic otherworldliness – and the world’s premier Beatle band The Bootleg Beatles who will be concentrating on the Fab Four’s musical output between 1966 and 1970.
And if that isn’t quite enough, there is an incredibly strong undercard that boasts amongst many others those hardy English perennials and firm festival favourites, Julian Cope and Robyn Hitchcock, the psychedelic garage pop of Los Angeles’ Allah-Lahs, North Carolina’s electro-poppers Sylvan Esso and the visceral intensity of Glaswegian trio Amazing Snakeheads.
The Lunar Festival line up can be found here
A whole range of other activities from Ska Aerobics to Seriously Good Felting and Playful Pottery to Printmaking will feature over the festival’s three days, appealing to both young and old alike. And in a repeat of last year, there will again be the opportunity for 40 very lucky people to listen to one of Nick Drake’s albums on his very own record player. This year the album will be his second full-length release Bryter Later. Full details of how to apply for this will appear on the festival website soon.
All of the Lunar Festival information, including ticketing info (an adult weekend ticket is very competitively priced at £89) and the introduction this year of a new camping field and luxury camping, can be obtained right here
Lunar Festival runs from 5th to 7th June 2015 at Umberslade Estate, Warwickshire, England.
And just to further whet your appetite for what lies in store for you at the Lunar Festival 2015, here is a video featuring some wonderful footage from last year :
