Stendhal announces first acts for 15 year celebrations

The Multi-award winning Stendhal Festival has released the first part of its music and comedy programme for what will be a landmark 15th edition of the event on the 4th, 5th and 6th of July.

Music lovers have a multitude of genres to choose from, along with some massively popular names, up and coming diamonds and the finest indigenous talent.

The Lightning Seeds and Kate Nash will stand out as acts who have enjoyed massive UK chart success, with the Lightning seeds enjoying two UK number one singles and 6 UK top 40 Albums, while Kate Nash’s debut album ‘Made of Bricks’ stormed to number one in the UK albums Chart upon release.

Electronic legends The Orb are back on the bill following an unexpected last minute cancellation from the programme last summer, while another DJ Marc McCabe will make his Stendhal debut to celebrate an incredible 25 year anniversary of a tune that needs no introduction.

Lisa McHugh will bring all her incredible country stylings back to the farm, while Fionn Regan, the incredible Mercury and Choice Award nominated singer songwriter will take to the Stendhal stage for the very first time.

Comedy lovers have a real treat in store as the excellent Ed Byrne is all set to headline the comedy programme. A stalwart in the UK and Irish comedy scene, Ed has seen and done it all in that world. He will be joined on the comedy bill by the inimitable Emer Maguire, the Strabane native whose star continues to rise as anything she touches seems to turn to gold.

On top of that add in over 40 more musical acts in this first wave of announcements including incredible home grown acts like; Joshua Burnside, The Woodburning Savages, The Florentinas, Duke Special, Huartan, Problem Patterns and The Bonnevilles.

Our commitment to platforming the very best up and coming and under the radar acts from the Republic of Ireland continues with performances from; All Folk’d Up, Junior Brother, Bog Bodies, Bicurious,  Nerves and Babyrat, all set to be stand out affairs. 

Festival Director Ross Parkhill says that everything is shaping up to be a memorable celebration of fifteen years of Stendhal.

“The festival has been an incredible journey for everyone involved,” he said, “there have been massive highs and plenty of lows but to think that we are going to be opening the gates for a fifteenth time this July is something we probably didn’t think we would be doing when we started this all in 2011.”

He continued: “We have grown from a daydream into the island of Irelands largest and longest running independent festival and we can’t wait to celebrate that with everyone this summer.

“Thank you to everyone who bought tickets before we announced the line-up, your support is as amazing as it is vital to us, the independent festival sector continues to struggle in the current climate and your constant and unwavering support has allowed us to continue flying the flag for independent events and for independent and indigenous artists.”

Stendhal has been boosted this year with renewed support from Tourism Northern Ireland who have welcomed the festival into their portfolio of events which qualify for support under the International Tourism Fund.

Ross said: “It was desperately welcome news that we had been successful in our TNI funding application this year. The Support pledged by TNI will help us to continue to make improvements to the event and also allow us to widen our net in terms of advertising with the goal of bringing even more out of state visitors to northern Ireland, specifically for Stendhal.

“Thank you to everyone at TNI who made this happen, as I’ve mentioned countless times, the independent arts space is struggling, so for an organization such as our to receive this level of support is massively important for us and all our stakeholders.”

Line up announcement 1: All Acts to date:

The Lightning Seeds, Kate Nash, Ed Byrne, Lisa McHugh, Mark McCabe, The Orb, Fionn Regan, Joshua Burnside, All Folk’d Up, The Barley Mob, Pleaseuredome 80’s Junior Brother, Duke Special, The Florentinas, The Wood Burning Savages, Preyers, David C. Clements, Hat Fitz and Cara Robinson, Roll With It (Oasis Tribute), Problem Patterns, Lore, Realta, Bog Bodies, Calum Agnew, Mickey Callisto, Huartan, Babyrat, Screaming Eagles, Leo Miyagee, Wynona Bleach, Bicurious, Aqua Tofana, Lonesome George, Becky McNiece, Winnie Ama, Emer Maguire, The Bonnevilles, Mshakht Collective and the North Coast Folk Collective, The Elixir Hip-Hop Showcase, Kenan Flannery, Grainne Holland, Dani Larkin, Tessio, Nerves, The Innishowen Gospel Choir, Neosupervital, The Criac Inn, DJ Fionn, The Rock Choir, Krypyic.