exclusive: Wychwood announces Wonder Stuff, & more

The Wychwood Music Festival which takes place from Friday 29th to Sunday 31st May 2009 at Cheltenham Racecourse, Gloucestershire have announced more acts for next year, joining those already announced, the 11 piece folk dance festival favourites Bellowhead, and Asian fusionists Kissmet.

Now confirmed as joining them are The Wonder Stuff, Oysterband, John Jones, and Justin Adams with Juldeh Camara. More acts will be confirmed over the coming months.

After Miles Hunt and Erica Nockall's set at Wychwood 2008, the full Wonder Stuff band will perform on the Friday night as they celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of their debut album, 'The Eight Legged Groove Machine'.

Having just completed their 30th Anniversary Tour, Oysterband will be performing on the Saturday. And as well as with the Oysterband, their frontman John Jones will also be doing a solo show on the Friday night as part of his walking folk tour. It's expected that John will be joined on the road by some special guests,to be confirmed.

Seasoned by work with Robert Plant and Tinariwen, Justin Adams' driving guitar finds a perfect match in West African Master Musician Juldeh Camara's hypnotic ritti (African fiddle) and powerful voice. Their album 'Soul Science' has been in the fRoots and Songlines top 10 albums of the year, and was also nominated for a Radio 3 World Music award. As a live trio with percussionist Salah Dawson Miller "a shaman at the court of Genghis Khan" (Evening Standard), they invoke the spirit of ancient juju Rock and Roll, and will be playing on the Sunday.

Comedy-wise, proudly sponsored by eFestivals, Wychwood has for next year appointed regular act Mundo Jazz as curator. The first star that he's managed to bag is Arthur Smith, a familiar name on both radio on TV.

New for 2009 is keen Wychwood supporter Tom Robinson curating an evening stage. Tom says "Working on the ‘BBC Introducing show’ on 6 Music over the past year I've found myself immersed in the wealth on independent music being published on the web nowadays. Listeners constantly profess themselves surprised at how much high quality music is out there on MySpace, Facebook, Last.fm and the like which never normally figures on the radar of mainstream radio.

Which is why I've offered to curate a stage at Wychwood this year - and introduce these independent artists I've come to know and love to a real live kicking festival audience. You will hear three nights of breathtaking music performed with passion, integrity - and the odd dollop of bizarre humour - by independent artists setting a course of their own way beneath the media radar."

Also new for the families in 2009 is a whole new area dedicated to Children’s Authors in 2009. This will include readings from some of the top authors of today, plus interactive workshops, performing, creating and dressing up.

Tickets are on sale, priced at £110 for the weekend, with concessions costing £85, and up-to two under-12s FREE (extra under-12s £10 each). A campervan/caravan pass is £30. To buy click here.



Wychwood has established itself in just four years as being one of the best family festivals in the UK, and prides itself on its eclectic mix of Indie, pop, world and folk music programming combined with comedy (sponsored by eFestivals.co.uk), solar powered cinema, loads of workshops, seminars and creative activities for all ages, all on a compact site at Cheltenham Racecourse, with idyllic camping under the Prestbury Hills. Expect also the return in 2009 of the popular silent disco.

Why not check out this short film about last year's Wychwood festival?

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