2Q kicks off Festival Season 2017
Uniting a divided Brexitannia is best done by a diverse community of fun lovers coming together and making Britain Great again. Derby's mammoth music and arts festival, is set to be a moment of heaven17 (50 years on from the first Summer Of Love, let's avoid a second summer of hate at all costs). 2Q Looks BRILLIANT! Milburn, Temples, Black Honey, Idles, October Drift, Hannah Lou Clark, Strange Bones, The Wytches, Trash, VANT and Judas are among a mass musical mecca taking over Derby city centre on April 1st (All Cools Day). 2Q has curated a line up rapidly growing in reputation and profile.
Take Black Honey ('Hello Today' video), a noise pop sensation with a punky, feisty female fronted rawness, who will engage a crowd like they're playing the biggest of stages.
They're not the only name on this bill, who are potentially bigger than the close range that you'll catch them, at if you're lucky enough to have a ticket.
2Q is Derby’s multi-venue, live music festival. Attractively affordable, it's a must go moment.
Before even arriving, TheZineUK have found there’s nothing stand-offish about their slick organisation and overt helpfulness. Add this to a competitive and credible mix of national media faves with promising newcomers. This, and the welcoming friendliness probably helped 2Q get shortlisted for both best metropolitan and newcomer, in it’s first year of existence, at UK Festival Awards 2016.
If ever there was a year to make a mark on, as a moment that made people happy, then it is 2017. So you might as well curate a bill with artists that are causing obsession. A ready-made, stadium-worthy prospect are The Shimmer Band, being spoken of, in tongues, like a 21st century first coming, and now on the Radio 1 playlist with current single 'Jacknife And The Death Call'. They bring cosmically charged epic space rock anthems that are leaving sobs and gasps of elation in their wake as music fans fall hard in love. Nothing wrong with love.
Hey, rock n roll show fanatics, bring your affection, also for Asylums, the band emitting 'Killer Brain Waves' (widely acclaimed an album of 2016) into the ether and taking DIY to whole new levels of collective achievement with their Cool Thing Records imprint. The band and are so thrilling and fun live, that actual squeals are back at gigs. The sheer joy of their anthems and firecracker moves (see the 'Second Class Sex' video), leave venues full of manic grinning, actually looking a bit like, erm, asylums...
Jordan Mackampa is bringing a voice to this massive day, that sounds capable of any swoop, swerve, twist and turn of emotion, like a magic potion.
Immersed in a fusion of musical genres, poets, artists and a far from dull life (the present included), Jordan is on an extensive tour in summer, so today is also a preview.
In this video for the vocal star spotting Mahogany Sessions, he performs his song, 'Open Arms' by a canal.
The Blinders - are punk art poets who have crafted their own sounds from many inspirations, and then, by a noisy twist of fate, become one themselves.
Their youth fuel, agit-politico, raw intensity has made believers out of a generation raised on dystopian bleakness and zombie-like, digital screen stalking.
They played their first headline tour of small venues this February and March. Most dates sold out. Every show elicited superlatives of delight. A short film made at these dates, 'Ramona Flowers', is their next release.
Now in only in it's second year, 2Q has already grown with more venues and performers this year to become one of the city’s largest events. With an overload of touring favourites appearing, the £22.50 entry is so much of a bargain that tickets are flying. At time of writing, 70% of the tickets were gone in advance. If you've got one, you're in for a treat. The spirit of taking care of it’s audience remains. 2Q Festival and local public transport have joined forces to offer free bus rides home from the festival on 1st April 2017. That is not an All Fools Day prank! Info, stage times, venues and any remaining tickets at 2qfestival.co.uk/
