As this weekend’s Community Festival approaches, it looks set to be a scorcher. With promises of “a lot of energy, hopefully a lot of nostalgia, we’re going to play a lot of old songs, there might be a straw hat at some point chucked in for the old days. But you know it’s going to be a real moment for us and our fans,” from headliners The Kooks, the line-up is bursting with a number of other bands promising to deliver the indie extravaganza of the year.
Here’s some of the bands we recommend you see if you’re heading down, picked by those on the line-up themselves:
SWMRS (picked by The Amazons)
I played a show with Joey and Seb last summer. We made this supergroup with Ratboy and Jackson from Anteros for a Joe Strummer tribute show. It was at Dingwalls in Camden and we met and rehearsed properly only a couple hours before. We played ‘Spanish Bombs’ by The Clash and one of Strummer’s solo tunes. We were all fucking nervous and excited to play for the first time together in front hundreds of die hard Clash fans. I’ll always remember Joey calming everyone down before we went onstage by telling us to play like “stoned old men", advice I’ve used with The Amazons in some of the more intense moments. They’re great guys and musicians so we’re super excited to see them live for the first time.
SWMRS play the Main Stage at 12:35pm
Blossoms (picked by Sea Girls)
Disco beats, catchy synths and they know their way around a chorus, what’s not to love? It’s awesome to see a band going from strength to strength and it’s a great festival set. We’ll see you in the pit.
Blossoms play the Main Stage at 6:15pm
The Night Café (picked by The Night Café)
Everyone should go see The Night Café because it’s going to be heavy.
The Night Café play the N4 Stage at 6:15pm
The Academic (picked by Fuzzy Sun)
If you fancy drifting away from the main stage, you should go catch The Academic on the N4 stage. There must be something in the water over in Ireland at the minute, on our travels we have bumped into some great bands from across the sea (Inhaler & Whenyoung). We caught The Academic at Live At Leeds this year, they have some great pop tunes with good catchy melodies to sing and have a dance to. But just try and catch as many bands as you can, and we'd be very grateful if you caught our set! (got to do a bit of self-promo).
The Academic play the N4 Stage at 4:25pm
The Kooks (picked by The Amazons)
Our first ever tour was supporting The Kooks in Germany, right at the top of 2015. They were very kind and it was a real eye opener for us, so it'll be nice to catch up with the guys at the festival. Summer festivals certainly serve as a natural habitat for The Kooks' music so I think it'll be a lot of fun.
The Kooks play the Main Stage at 7:50pm
And you can catch all of the bands mentioned above at Community Festival this weekend. Tickets are still available here.
