Feast of music on tap at new fest

Jun 23 2009 by Andrew Welsh, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

SOME of Scotland’s hottest new bands will join forces in the Fair City to play a new gig extravaganza being held next week.

The inaugural Perth Music Festival is set to gather the cream of rock, reggae and folk talent from the Big County and beyond across six city centre venues over four nights.

A series of shows from July 2-5 will see a host of established Perthshire acts, including Aye ‘n’ Aye, The Number, Joey Terrifying, Lady Miss Emma and The Humble Hobos, being joined by the likes of Dundee-based scallywags Luva Anna, Glenrothes indie band Sergeant and quirky guitar rockers The Xcerts, from Aberdeen.

Other acts involved include Happy Vandals, The Ray Summers, Comatoast, We Were Promised Jet Packs, John Langan, The Trade, The Fire And I and True Gents.

Event organiser Sam Hume told Music Scene the 39 bands involved in the project had been signed up with help from one of the artists taking part.

“The lead singer of Day Of Days, Paul Petrie, has been adding friends and advertising the festival on Myspace,” she explained.

“Between us we’ve been able to co-ordinate the bookings but it wasn’t too difficult.

“About 50 bands decided to have me as a friend on Bebo after they found out I was organising the event!

“A few managers were reluctant about the artists signing-up for a one-off, but they dropped their prices when they found out it was a festival.

“We’ve tried to get as many local bands involved as possible, but we also wanted to venture outside Perth because it’s important to bring in visitors from other areas.”

Between them, six Perth venues - Mucky Mulligans, the Twa Tams, the Sandeman, Capital Asset, the Old Ship Inn and the Ice Factory - have splashed out around £5000 towards securing the event’s top turns and meeting the costs of hiring public address systems.

“The publicans have worked together to ensure the same bands won’t be on twice,” added Sam.

“Also, there will be different musical themes in each venue. For example, the Twa Tams is hosting folk acts, while Mulligans has rock.

“That way, we can spread the custom around.”

External backing for PMF is being provided by big name beer brands Coors and Carling, as well as Perth and Kinross Council.

Brewing giants Tennent’s have supplied two weekend passes to T in the Park as a raffle prize, with the PMF organisers pledging to donate at least half of all draw proceeds to charity.

And Sam is confident the event’s timing - it’s on just one weekend before the Balado attraction - won’t have a detrimental impact on attendances.

“Hopefully everyone will have bought their T tickets by then,” she said.

“We’re on over Game Fair weekend and we’ve got different musical genres that should appeal to lots of people out and about in the town centre.”

PKC marketing officer Stuart Oliver said the local authority would be watching, and listening, with interest. “Many other cities have their own established music festivals of this nature, but Perth doesn’t,” he told Music Scene.

“We are doing the pilot this year with a view to the event being much bigger next year to celebrate the 800th anniversary of Perth.

“This is the first time all the local publicans have got together to work in collaboration and we’ll see how it goes.

“All the venues have won Best Bar None awards and it should be easier to get direct sponsorship after a year.”

All the gigs are free to enter, except those at the Ice Factory which cost £5 each night or £10 for a weekend pass.

For the full line-up, go to www.perthmusicfestival.co.uk