Garden Party – Main Stage Music

We’re All About The Music

Rich here. Well, I’m ecstatic to be able to say we’ve just about got everything confirmed up musically for the Garden Party. It’s been really tricky getting this all confirmed but as for the main stage, we’re just about there now. There’s still plenty of music to discover on the day itself, but without further ado may I introduce…

The Old Time String Band

Opening the stage at the Hope and Social Garden Party… Martyn Roper and Daisy Thurkettle-Roper are The Old Time String Band.

I saw The Old Time String Band in the Cardigan Arms what seems like an age ago now, and vowed to get them involved in something H&S. They’re not doing The Old Time String Band stuff so we’re super privileged to have them, so make sure you’re there early on the 31st as this is who will be opening our main stage for the day.

Perfect!

Not only are they super talented and gorgeous, but another interesting thing about Daisy and Martyn is that their wedding rings are made from gold panned by Daisy herself. I love this story. You can see the pictures here and read more about it here. Ah. ;)

Second Up…

String Fellows

String Fellows are a 14 Piece, 49 String, String band from Good ol’ Yorkshire. I’ve been in love with ’em since Sean (Alamo investor and long time H&S & FDH supporter) Leonard sent me a version of “Yes Sir” (hit play on Yes Sir below – I defy you not be smiling by 1min +15). They also do their own tunes and I’d urge you to go and part with the £4 they’re asking for the download of their album (yes I know it should be Pay What You Want… I’ll talk to ’em) so you can get familiarised.

To quote Sean from our earlier telephone conversation:

“We just started out as a loose guitar collective, that we’ve ended up doing like, proper gigs an’ that is as surprising to us as it is to anyone.”

We go way back do Si, Ed & I and Sean, his lovely missus Mary and the gorgeous Julia. They were there in the early days, they were with us at Glastonbury and now, we’re proud and privileged to have String Fellows with Our Sean, play out with us at the Garden Party. There’s a lovely video of String Fellows up on the Rhythm Festival website here too.

Third up… you’ve seen them before and you’ve heard them on our records… we have…

Voices of The Day

Seacroft Community Choir, also known as “Voices of The Day“.

(Big thanks to Daniela, @tessasmith and Cleve for making this happen). You’ll recognise the sound of Voices of The Day from Swaddled in Dark Clouds and the title track of Sleep Sound…

You can hear them recording Swaddled in Dark Clouds below:

VOTD recording Swaddled In Dark Clouds

They also supported us at The Brudenell Social Club for the Sleep Sound album launch and did a wee set for us there too!

So joyous were the Voices of The Day choir at the Sleep Sound launch that we couldn’t resist getting them along for the Garden Party. Some people were genuinely crying tears of joy. So, again, were so pleased to welcome Seacroft Community Choir, The Voices of The Day.

……aaaand best of all, have read of this rather cool Yorkshire Evening Post interview with Cleve. Hilariously positive & smiley picture. Gotta luv ‘im!

Lastly… to close the day…

There’s some band called Hope and Social.
Whatever.
xR

PS – all the garden party blogs and stuff are being collated at hopeandsocial.com/gardenparty – if you want to find out more, have a looksie there… or comment here below.

PPS – there’s plenty more to come on the music front. Simon Wiffen will be blogging the Hammock Stage line-up on Monday, and we’ll have much more to tell you this coming week in the run-up to the (almost sold-out) #hsgardenparty (Don’t forget to tag your tweets #hsgardenparty)