A festive weekend – SoundHarvest and Festinho

There were no changing rooms at SoundHarvest- Mary got changed behind a sheet. Rock and roll!

Oh  God I’m tired.   Not just a bit knackered but deep-down-in-my-bones exhausted.  Bad typing, falling asleep on the toilet, just want to be in bed kind of tired. But what a weekend!

On Saturday night the Shadow Orchestra played at SoundHarvest, in Glynde down in Sussex. We went down an absolute storm, and were even asked back for an encore. Embarrassingly, we don’t have any more tunes, so we played the first track again. Here’s the setlist:

• Direct Out
• Plucking and Bowing
• Creaking and Bowing
• Matilda
• Epic tune
• Rocket Pack
• Sweet as a Nut

Clearly, we need to work on some new material…

It was a really lovely little festival. We were on after the North Sea Radio Orchestra:

The North Sea Radio Orchestra. Utterly charming.

The next day we did it all agan at Festinho. The festival has always had a special place in my heart since I played there a couple of years ago (in about 4 bands!). It’s a bit odd to see a festival run my your mates for a couple of hundred people grow into a big, professional venture. There were people there I didn’t know!

To kick things off on Sunday, here are Ricky Fabulous and Kathrin deBoer from Belleruche:

Belleruche, unplugged. Kathrin's voice sounded amazing.

Here’s the Penguin Cafe people, soundchecking on the main stage:

Penguins a-go-go

We were onthe Harvest Stage, curated by ex-Big Chill head honcho Pete Lawrence. Earlier in the afternoon was the gorgeous Sabira Jade:

Sabira Jade and her lovely ladies (and hairy bloke on guitar)

We went down a storm (again) and (yet again) got asked back for an encore. We still didn’t have enough material, so yet again we did Direct out once more. It’s becoming quite a habit… Must. Write. Some. New. Material.

(At least I got to play Billie Jean while Chris and Mary nipped off to the loo!)

Huge thanks to everyone who came along for our set – the EP will be out before Christmas, I promise! And big thanks to Pete and Stricky for booking us, to Eddie the stage manager, to Andy  (I think that’s his name) on sound, and to the whole Festinho team.

I’m really, really tired.