It's panning out to be a cracking summer full of music for lucky North East festival goers thanks to the buzz triggered by County Durham's very own Hardwick Festival - where headliners Stereophonics and The Specials look set to blow the roof off the main stage
This year’s strong festival line up, on Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 August, is based at Hardwick Hall, Sedgefield. It seals Hardwick’s reputation as one of the biggest, longest-standing and most popular festivals in the region. Why traipse all over the UK battling train strikes, exorbitant fuel prices and motorway bottlenecks when there’s a festival this good right on the doorstep?
As well as rock heroes Stereophonics – on Saturday night – and two-tone pioneers The Specials on Sunday, other musical crowd pleasers include Scottish duo The Proclaimers, indie singer-songwriter Jake Bugg and Californian blues musician Seasick Steve.
Another welcome addition to the main stage will be the popular BRIT award winner Becky Hill, who has clocked up 12 Top 40 hits on the Official Singles Chart. Another BRIT award winner Ella Ayre will appear at the festival along with Oh My God! It’s The Church and local favourites The Redroom.
This summer at Hardwick is not only about singers and bands: there’ll be an unmissable solid gathering of some of the biggest-name UK, European and International DJs. American DJ Danny Tenaglia, the highly influential house music guru with threedecades in the industry and a Grammy nomination under his belt, will be a huge draw. As will Germanborn Tino Schmidt, AKA the Purple Disco Machine, and Spanish radio host and label founder David Penn who was rated the number one house music artist of all time by Beatstat Charts. Throw in another 20-plus big DJ names including, British club DJ Brandon Block, electronic music producer Kevin Saunderson from Detroit, fellow American DJ Huey Morgan – lead singer of the Fun Loving Criminals – plus live PAs from Inner City and Robin S and you get an idea of the scale of the sounds ahead.
It’s also worth keeping an eye out – or an ear open – for BBC Radio 1 DJ Arielle Free who will be taking to the Hardwick turntables following her appearances at Hi Ibiza and as a co-presenter of the podcast Love Island: The Morning After. Another performer expertly fine tuning the decks will be Ibiza regular DJ Jess Bays and founder of the successful club brand Superstore.
Spread across the spacious grounds of Hardwick Hall will be five music stages, three DJ stages as well as a Soul Tent plus karaoke, a large children’s arena, fun fair plus a large array of street food.
To buy tickets or for more details go to: www.hardwickfestival.co.uk