BoomTown festival 2014 final acts announced

Chapter six of BoomTown’s annual Fair is set to surpass anything they’ve done before, and that is no mean feat for the UKs most boundary pushing festival! New additions to its already immense line-up include one of the biggest crossover successes in dancehall reggae, the one and only Shaggy! As well as blues, country, electro fusion outfit Alabama 3 and the final edition to the bill is legendary Jamaican ska institution The Skatalites, if any one band could be attributed to brining the genre out of its homeland and to the masses, it’s this ever evolving line-up of ska stalwarts! These newly announced acts will be joining the hundreds of artists already announced including headliners The Cat Empire, NOFX, Jimmy Cliff, The Wailers, Tinariwen and Bellowhead.

Other musical treats in store at the 2014 fair will include the very welcome return of Tribe of Frog’s psytrance forest party. Just one of the many secret forest parties to be found around the city’s outskirts, Tribe of Frog landed in 2013 and bought with them a brand new world of colourful psychedelic lunacy that captured many a BoomTown resident for the entire weekend in the sun dappled, sandy forest clearing hosting giant butterflies and happy souls! More information can be found here: http://www.boomtownfair.co.uk/city-guide/main-stages/tribe-of-frog

With all the bands and the theme of Outrageous Carnival now announced, it is time for all potential BoomTown residents to make the vital decision of which district they will make their home for the four days and nights of utter escapism and proper old fashioned fun! Each of the eight districts have their own flavour and theme, to get a taste of the difference and the full line-ups take a peek at the ‘Explore Our World’ guided tour of the city from BoomTown HQ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=caYp6IYSgwc

BoomTown Fair aims to be affordable and accessible to all and has a series of measures to ensure that all potential citizens get the chance to be a part of the spectacular show! From the easy payment plan to a whole host of job opportunities, there is every reason to get involved:

Easy Payment Plan, pay just £40 by this Friday 2nd May to secure a ticket and then pay as much as you can afford when you can, as long as the full ticket price is all paid up by 1st July. For full details head to: https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk/tickets/boomtown-fair-2014/10028744&wlid=3945

Tickets are still available from the website at the final tier price of £150 (+BF & EcoBond): http://www.boomtownfair.co.uk/tickets. Headliners for the festival include: The Cat Empire, NOFX, Jimmy Cliff, The Wailers, Tinariwen, Bellowhead, Afro Celt Sound System, Playing for Change, Raggasonic, Lady Saw, UK Allstars World Debut, Babylon Circus, Toasters, Tipper, Boddika, Special Request, Eats Everything and many more…

BoomTown Fair announces over 400 bands

Over the past month the world’s biggest pop-up city festival, BoomTown Fair has unveiled the 400 plus artists set to perform within the make-believe metropolis this summer. Taking place over 7th – 10th August in Hampshire, BoomTown Fair’s new headliners include; Irish-African fusion Afro Celt Sound System, French gypsy gyrators Babylon Circus, pioneering banging bass producer Eats Everything and American ska innovators, The Toasters and Voodoo Glow Skulls. These top notch international acts will appear alongside all previously announced artists including; The Cat Empire, NOFX, Jimmy Cliff, The Wailers, Tinariwen, Bellowhead, Tipper, Raggasonic and hundreds more, plus there is still one extra special Saturday night headliner still to be unveiled!

All eight of the district line ups have now been released covering a huge and diverse range of acts and genres from all over the world: Blues from Mali and Jamaica, dancehall from France and Bermuda, gypsy from Spain and Australia, electro-swing from Italy and Switzerland, big brass bands from Rajasthan and New Orleans, Afro-Funk from Wales and Columbia, Pirate bands from Holland and Texas, ska out of Sweden and Scotland and folk-punks from Canada and Ireland to name just a few! See below for an overview of each district and some of the musical highlights to keep an eye open for!

OldTown District can be found beyond the hustle and bustle of the Town Centre, it houses the ramshackle remnants of the glory days amongst the dilapidated buildings of this once the thriving port from BoomTown’s rise to greatness, however OldTown has long since been the dwelling of pirates and despicable souls!! Saturday will see a full on Pirate takeover of all venues and stages of OldTown, with a total influx of all things pirate! Swashbuckling their way through all the pirate madness are other acts include; Russkaja, WooHoo Revue, The Destroyers, Diving for Sunken Treasure and Tako Lako.

Mayfair Avenue is the hub of high class with its swanky electro-swing clubs and live swing bands, venues include; The Ballroom, The Gentlemen’s Club and Bump (Roller Disco). Get ready for the hottest party in town as the Masked Ball will be swooping into the streets of MayFair on Sunday evening! Top acts to be found mingling with the BoomTown glitterati are: Klischée, The Sweet Life Society and Electric Swing Circus, Smokey Joe & The Kid.

ChinaTown is filled with the most ‘avin it levels of punk: ska punk, rockin’ punk, folk punk and polka punk, as well as a healthy dollop of ‘hell jazz‘n’roll’ thrown in for good measure! The venues include the ChinaTown Courtyard and Devil Kicks Dancehall, acts heading up the bill for the weekend comprise of ground-breaking American Ska band, Voodoo Glow Skulls, pioneering their blend of hard-core and ska these stalwarts have been striding it out since the mid-80s and will give the Devil Kick’s Dancehall one almighty a closing party as the last band on Sunday night! Over on the ChinaTown Courtyard are Jaya the Cat, treating the ChinaTown folks to an uncompromising and original mix of reggae, punk rock and ska!

Whistlers Green has recently been upgraded and rejuvenated. This culture oozing zone of BoomTown is on hand to soothe your aching soul with some of the very best this globe has to offer in folk, blues and world music, all within its very own main stage, The Old Mines. Along with headliners multi-award winning Afro Celt Sound System, Tinarwen, Bellowhead and Playing for Change there will be lesser known, but equally absorbing artists such as Beans on Toast, Treacherous Orchestra, Dizraeli and the Small Gods, Sam Lee & Friends and many more. This area will be providing the soundtrack to a perfect summer’s day with uplifting melodies and triumphant tunes!

Wild West, amongst the dusty streets and housed in the rickety buildings of this freshly re-discovered area of BoomTown, the ultimate in Hillbilly, Bluegrass, Cajun, Yehaa, Cowpunk, Dirty Blues and of course Scrumpy and Western can be found! Heading up the bill is harmonica and beatboxing blues guru, Son of Dave, festival regulars Pronghorn and along with some of the very best band names on the scene: Lumberjack Cowboy Heartbreak Trucking Company, Screamin' Miss Jackson and the Slap Ya Mama Big Band and Johnny Cage and the Voodoo Groove to mention just a few!!!

TrenchTown not only boasts the best in dub, reggae, dancehall and jungle, but possibly three of the most notable stages that any one district alone has to offer, with The Lion’s Den Aztec temple, Tangled Roots forest party and the Hidden Woods sun-drenched clearing. TrenchTown is where reggae legends Jimmy Cliff and The Wailers can be found alongside many up and coming gems including Bermudan dancehall MC Uzimon with his borderline parody lyrics that are as funny as they are clever and Brushy One String, if sunshine and smiles were to be combined in human form it would be Brushy and his guitar’s one string of happiness!

DownTown hosts some of the most popular venues for late night shenanigans including Arcadia, BoomBox, the Dance Off, The Bodyshop and ASBO Disco. Lurking within these seedy establishments is the very best in breaks, break-core, drum’n’bass, garage, gabba, grime, jungle etc… Featuring on amongst 100’s of other is one of the most exhilarating talents to come out of the scene in recent times, Rockwell! There will also be a full on Old Skool takeover of DownTown with 2 Bad Mice, Altern8, Billy Bunter, Ray Keith and Aphrodite on the Sunday night.

Barrio Loco, the winning district at the 2013 elections, showcases dirty bass in its multitude of venues including Poco Loco and Circo Baile. With the newest headliner on the bill, the omnivorous beat-maker Eats Everything, currently at the forefront of an emerging wave of talented producers to come out of the West Country’s bass epicentre Bristol, helping define an entirely new genre of forward-thinking underground music. Along with other amazing dance music frontrunners, Special Request, Stanton Warriors, Ms Dynamite and many more!!

Tickets are still available from the website at the final tier price of £150 (+BF and EcoBond): http://www.boomtownfair.co.uk/tickets. Headliners for the festival include: The Cat Empire, NOFX, Jimmy Cliff, The Wailers, Tinariwen, Bellowhead, Afro Celt Sound System, Playing for Change, Raggasonic, Lady Saw, UK Allstars World Debut, Babylon Circus, Toasters, Tipper, Boddika, Special Request, Eats Everything and many more.

First acts announced for BoomTown 2014

Having already announced a brand new main stage celebrating folk and world music, as well as the theme of Carnival, BoomTown have issued some pretty exciting news so far this year and now to add to the ever mounting anticipation for one of the summer’s most immersive and theatrical events, BoomTown has revealed the initial wave of artists for the sixth instalment of the Fair!! First up, is the welcome return to the UK festival circuit after a seven year hiatus, The Cat Empire! Other headliners of this incredibly diverse festival include one of the biggest names in Californian ska-punk NOFX, the most well-known band in the history of reggae The Wailers, another reggae legend Jimmy Cliff, Grammy Award winning Mali musicians Tinariwen, eight-time winners at the BBC Folk awards Bellowhead and at the other end of the musical spectrum; queen of the dancehall Lady Saw, French ragga supremoes Raggasonic, the world debut outing of the UK Allstars, electronic mastermind Tipper and the raw electronic sounds of Boddika. This is one seriously hot initial line-up looking to set the summer on fire! BoomTown Fair is held over 7th – 10th August at the Matterly Estate, Winchester and caters for a huge amount of musical tastes from folk and world music, all the way through to the soul penetrating bass of ragga and jungle.

Accompanying the headliners The Cat Empire and NOFX on the ska, swing and punk stages are:  New Orleans Hot 8 Brass Band, bringing their version of the traditional marching band right up-to-date with bass, funk and hip-hop sounds.There will also be cheeky cockney chappies Chas n Dave with their special blend of ‘Rockney’; Hayseed Dixie will be bringing a unique take on AC/DC classics with their very own genre of ‘Rockgrass’.  The irrepressible [dunkelbunt] and the Secret Swing Society, five piece folk-punk outfit The Dreadnoughts; lost legend of Ska Freddie Notes, along with; Tape Five, Phoenix City Allstars feat Rhoda Dakar, Russkaja, Woohoo Revue, The Destroyers, The Trojans, Molotov Jukebox,  La Selva Sur, Babyhead and Horace Panter's Uptown Ska Collective.

In addition to very welcome return of Jimmy Cliff, the inaugural appearance at BoomTown of French trio Raggasonic and the first-lady of dancehall and GRAMMY winner Lady Saw, the reggae, dub and jungle stages are going to be shacking to the sound of some of the meatiest basslines in the world of reggae and dub! One of the most exciting acts to venture into the Lion’s Den, is the world debut of the UK Allstars, as the name suggests, this line up consists of the ultimate selection of originators from UK dancehall; Congo Natty, Congo Dubz, Tippa Irie, Top Cat, General Levy, Daddy Freddy, Sweetie, Irie, Tenor Fly and Nanci & Pheobe!!!  Also bringing the full force of their bass to the incredible Lion’s Den temple stage will be Warrior King, Easy Star All Stars performing the entirety of ‘Dub Side of the Moon’, Chronixx & Zinc Fence Redemption, Dawn Penn, The Skints, Mungo’s Hi-Fi Full Sound System, Macka B & The Roots Ragga Band, Benny Page, Raging Fyah, The Heatwave, Robbo Ranx & Stylo G & Sister Nancy.

With folk and world music a key focus for BoomTown this year and a dedicated brand new stage to host it all, there is set to be a huge influx of live acts to the festival with much more acoustic music available to soak up and chill out in one place; with international big hitters such as Tinariwen and Bellowhead the first announced headliners, along with global music movement Playing For Change Band, created to inspire and connect the world through music and with some of the most recognisable names in world music involved this is one collective of musicians not to miss! Mercury Award nominee Sam Lee and Friends, the incredible Joe Driscoll & Sekou Kouyate, the whirling dervishes of English folk 3 Daft Monkeys, BoomTown favourite Dub FX, along with Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit, Eliza Carthy, The Bad Shepherds, Treacherous Orchestra, Dizraeli & The Small Gods, Skinny Lister, La Chiva Gantiva and Beans On Toast.

Meanwhile, down in the depths of DownTown, amongst the Arcadia Spider BoomBox and the BodyShop is where the bassiest of bass and the most broken of beats can be found!! Confirmed so far are: Tipper, Boddika, Special Request, Hannah Wants, Dub Phizix & Strategy, Ms Dynamite, Mele’ & Slick Don, Friend Within, Rockwell, Stanton Warriors, Kahn & Neek, Proxy, Optiv & Btk, Black Sun Empire, Aphrodite, Bong Ra, Kry Wolf, Zed Bias, My Nu Leng, Swindle & Royal T, Altern8, Machine Code, Panachea, DJ Champion, Mouse Outfit, Jus Now,.

This is just the first of the confirmed acts, more acts will be announced in the coming weeks, to keep up with all new news sign up to the BoomTown newsletter via the website (www.boomtownfair.co.uk/) or follow BoomTown on Facebook (www.facebook.com/boomtownfair1).

FULL LINE UP SO FAR:

SKA, SWING AND PUNK STAGES:

The Cat Empire / NOFX / Hot 8 Brass Band / Chas and Dave / Hayseed Dixie
/ [dunkelbunt] and the Secret Swing Society / The Dreadnoughts / Freddie Notes / Tape Five / Phoenix City / Allstars feat Rhoda Dakar / Russkaja / Woohoo Revue / The Destroyers / The Trojans / Molotov Jukebox / La Selva Sur / Babyhead / Horace Panter's Upown Ska Collective

REGGAE, DUB AND JUNGLE STAGES:

Jimmy Cliff / Raggasonic / Lady Saw / UK Allstars – feat: Congo Natty, Congo Dubz, Tippa Irie, Top Cat, General Levy, Daddy Freddy, Sweetie Irie, Tenor Fly, Nanci and Pheobe / Warrior King / Easy Star All Stars  / Chronixx / Dawn Penn / The Skints / Mungo’s Hi-Fi full Sound System / Raging Fyah / The Heatwave / Robbo Ranx and Stylo G / Jus Now

FOLK AND WORLD STAGES:

Tinariwen / Bellowhead / Playing For Change Band / Dub FX / Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit / Eliza Carthy / The Bad Shepherds / Treacherous Orchestra / Sam Lee and Friends / Joe Driscoll and Sekou Kouyate / 3 Daft Monkeys / Dizraeli and The Small Gods / Skinny Lister / La Chiva Gantiva / Beans On Toast

BREAK AND BASS STAGES:

Tipper / Boddika /  Special Request / Hannah Wants / Dub Phizix and Strategy / Ms Dynamite / Mele’ and Slick Don / Friend Within / Stanton Warriors / Kahn and Neek / Proxy / Optiv and Btk / Black Sun Empire / Aphrodite / Altern8 / Kry Wolf / Zed Bias / My Nu Leng / Rockwell / Swindle and Royal T / Bong Ra / Machine Code / Panachea / DJ Champion / Mouse Outfit feat. Dr Syntax and Sparkz