It’s festival season and there’s a brand new one heading to Peterborough at the end of the month.
Hot on the heels of the return of The Willow Fest it’s now time to get your tickets for the Nene Valley Rock Festival being held in the beautiful surroundings of Nene Park.
Running from Thursday August 31 to Sunday September 3, the NVRF is promising to offer a platform for local musicians alongside some of the legends of the rock, blues and progressive world.
ESP talked to the organisers about what we can expect...
The first thing everyone will want to know is who’ll be playing?
Before we answer that, let’s set the scene! Nene Valley Rock Festival (NVRF) is very much about classic rock, blues and blues/rock, and progressive rock. It’s absolutely not a heavy metal or thrash metal festival! The aim is to give the people of Peterborough and beyond the opportunity to see some legendary bands from around the world in a laid-back, intimate setting and we’ve approached some things differently. We also wanted to involve local and lesser known bands to give them the chance to play on a bill with some of the greats.
Starting with our headliners – on Friday we have Ten Years After – a band that played to half a million people at Woodstock in 1969. They’ve sold tens of millions of albums – we’re really pleased they’ve agreed to play! What’s more, since 2013, they’ve been joined by Peterborough’s own Colin Hodgkinson, whose musical history reads like a who’s who of blues and rock legends including Spencer Davis, Whitesnake, Chris Farlowe, Jon Lord and many more. While we’re on Woodstock, another band who played that massive event was Mountain, and their long-serving drummer is bringing his band Corky Laing’s Mountain on Friday too.
Saturday’s headliners are the band that led the idea of fusing blues with jazz and rock – Colosseum. Over the years they’ve also featured some of the greatest names in rock. Then on Sunday our headliner is the Crazy World of Arthur Brown – many older readers will remember their iconic hit single, Fire. Arthur is bringing a new stage show to the festival so expect some theatrics!
There’ll be 64 bands in total and every band in the main marquee will play at least an hour. There are biographies and samples of every band on the NVRF website – www.nvrf.rocks
Thursday looks a bit different to the other days…
On Friday, Saturday and Sunday we will mix the music up, starting at 11am and running through to 11pm. On Thursday our two marquees start at 5.30pm and one will feature rock and blues-rock bands, the other will feature progressive rock (prog). The Prog stage has a very rare festival performance of two sets by Noddy’s Puncture, arguably the world’s top tribute to Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Keith Emerson borrowed some of their keyboards for the final ELP show – so it’s very authentic! The Rock stage has a rare appearance by Leaf Hound, one of the pioneers of hard rock, supported by up and coming bands Häxan and Daxx & Roxane, with the festival opened by local band Derecho.
Can you tell us a bit more about the local bands?
Apart from Derecho, who are a superb Cambridgeshire band, we have various others including two from Peterborough – Austin Gold who are making waves across the UK, and blues band Crowbone. Another band building a big reputation right now are Empyre from Northampton, described as ‘intense atmospheric rock with a dark introspective edge’. Without listing them all now, I’ll mention Lilith’s Army, also from Northampton, who are one of the younger bands playing.
Why Nene Park and how will it work?
It’s so picturesque – we love it! They’ve been so helpful and on board with what we hope to do. We’re using Horse Meadow for the music, which is at the western end and out of the way of the main Ferry Meadows complex. There’ll be an enclosed ‘Music Arena’ that will include our real-ale bar and food traders, but fans have the option to go to the restaurant too.
We love having the Nene Valley Railway down one side! We have a separate temporary campsite that will use just the paddock area behind Lynch Farm which will be carefully controlled by professional security staff as well as festival volunteers. We’ll also operate a ‘leave-as-you-find-it’ policy. Everything will be cleared away and there’ll be no mess left at the end!
What about the music? How will that work?
We have two marquees. One will house two stages and is where most of the better known bands will play. We know people don’t like missing bands when there are multiple stages, so the two stages will alternate. This means we can have quick turnarounds between bands and give people as much music as possible – most of the top bands will get an hour and a half each. The other marquee will offer something fairly different to what the bigger marquee has playing at the time so fans get to see as much as possible but always have a choice.
You mentioned approaching things differently…
Yes. Festivals have changed over the years and some of our potential supporters have stopped going. We’ve taken a step back and thought not just about the bands but also the wider experience and looked at things from a fans’ perspective. People don’t like standing in the rain (if it rains!) so we house everything in marquees. They don’t like portaloos so we’ve hired in ‘luxury loos’. Alternating stages to minimise conflicts… We have chosen, ourselves, to set a maximum limit of just one thousand people so everyone can see the bands, not watch a screen from a distance. We have also added an astronomy lecture!
Will there be any impact on local residents?
We fully understand that some local residents might be concerned, so this is what we can tell you, and them…. The closest music will be around quarter of a mile away from the nearest houses, with trees and the Nene Valley Railway between us and them. None of the speakers will be pointing in the direction of the houses and the marquees will deaden some of the sound. The nature of our music is such that it’s not very bass-heavy, unlike say dance music. In fact our audience will want to hear great sound quality far more than turning anything up to eleven! We will be monitoring sound levels inside and outside and working within guidelines set by the Council. The 1,000 people limit also means the sound doesn’t have to carry very far. Even if we sell out, we won’t add much to the local traffic flows – it’ll only be a fraction of the number of vehicles the Park normally sees anyway. Anyone with any questions is welcome to contact us.
Finally, you say the event is ‘run not-for-profit by fans’. Explain!
Exactly that. All of our core team are giving their time for free. We’re taking no salaries, wages or even expenses. Every penny we receive goes into making the event happen. Any profits made this year puts us in a good position to do another festival next year, but we want to stay true to the original concept of supporting bands and providing a truly great, fun, intimate experience. We have no plans at all to develop a larger event – we don’t want to be Glastonbury or Download! It has to remain something different and special that offers great music and is fun for everyone.
So with limited tickets on offer, if this festival sounds like one for you, you need to grab your tickets quick so head to the NVRF website – www.nvrf.rocks
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