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Festival News: Summers End Festival 2007 - Dates, 3 Bands Announced

Posted on Sunday, February 18 @ 22:36:59 UTC by nightowl

We are pleased to announce that the third Summers End Progressive Rock Festival will take place on September 15th and 16th this year. We are also happy to announce that the festival will once again be held at the Robin Club in Bilston, Wolverhampton, UK.

Festival founder Huw Lloyd Jones explains: "2006 was very much an experimental year for us, with a move to two days and a new venue, but we are delighted with the way that the festival was received. The support we have had from Mike Hamblett and his staff at the Robin has been superb, and we are delighted to be back for 2007. The trick will be to come up with a line up to match last years, but we are currently talking to bands both in the UK and overseas, and we feel confident that we can equal, if not better, the 2006 festival."

The first three bands announced are: Solstice, Abarax, and Tinyfish.



The festival began at Gloucester Guildhall in 2005, and was headlined by Magenta, before moving to the Robin last year, with headline performances by Pendragon and The Flower Kings.

Co-organiser Stephen Lambe talks about the format for 2007: "We're likely to keep the schedule pretty much the same as 2006, with an afternoon and evening session on both days, but we'll certainly be paying attention to some of the minor timing problems we suffered last year. Now we have a feel for what the festival can achieve, there will almost certainly be more festival merchandise and there's a strong possibility of a pre-show concert in another local venue on the Friday night."

We are thrilled to welcome a resurgent Solstice to the Robin stage. The band brought a very different character to the UK Progressive revival in the early 80s, combining progressive rock with strong traditional folk elements. They quickly built a reputation as a dynamic live act, and produced the classic Silent Dance album in 1984. A revival in the mid 90s saw two further albums New Life and Circles, and now they are back once more to bring us their unique brand of prog.

Our first confirmed overseas artists are Abarax, from Germany. The band's music is symphonic progressive rock with its feet in Pink Floyd territory, typified by the fabulous, fluid guitar of Dennis Grasekamp. Their album, the concept piece The Crying Of The Whales is highly recommended for lovers of dynamic, emotional prog.

We are also very happy to welcome new British group Tinyfish to the festival. The band have just released their eponymous debut album on their own label, Lazygun Records, which uses spoken word passages, samples and guitar synths (rather than traditional keyboards) to create a fresh, contemporary, melodic brand of prog that is already gaining them many admirers.

Further details including a pre-show event, ticket sales and the festival schedule will be announced in the next few weeks. Tickets are likely to go on sale in April. Details will be posted as they happen at www.summersend.co.uk and www.myspace.com/summersendfestival.

Posted in Festival News