6 Music Festival 2015: a celebration of our alternative spirit

Putting together 6 Music's annual festival is a labour love and can take its toll, as 6 Music Editor Sam Moy explains in this post previewing the events which get underway at the end of this week. 

This year the 6 Music Festival arrives on the banks of the River Tyne.  Newcastle and Gateshead will play host to the second 6 Music festival – a celebration of our alternative spirit. 

This year we’ve gone large with three days of live music, conversation, spoken word, comedy and like-minded individuals coming together in 10 different performance spaces for over 100 performances across two nights.

I can’t even imagine the amount of hours which has gone into creating the Festival.  Well, I probably can by the way my fridge only seems to have had half a mouldy red pepper in it for what seems like months.  It takes a vast amount of hugely creative, talented and organised people to pull together an event of this magnitude, wrapped up in a multi-layered broadcast which features all of our presenters who are on air or hosting events themselves. All this, while still broadcasting, 24/7.

I was asked why this 6Music Festival is so special. It’s hard to sum it up in a sentence. So I’ve gone for 750-1000 words.  Ahem. 

The line-up

We’re very proud of the line up and the places we’ll be at.  And if you don’t know the By Night bill across the Newcastle Academy and the Sage Gateshead – it looks like this:  



Interpol Mogwai, Sleater-Kinney, The War On Drugs, Hot Chip, Royal Blood, The Fall, Jungle, Maximo Park, Kate Tempest, Gruff Rhys, Django Django, Father John Misty, Ghostpoet, The Cribs, Villagers, Ibibio Sound Machine, Kate Tempest and Eliza Carthy, The Charlatans, Jamie T, Neneh Cherry,  Jon Hopkins, British Sea Power, Gaz Coombes, Young Fathers,  Wire, The Maccabees, Glass Animals, Lonelady, King Creosote, Public Service Broadcasting, Teleman, Unknown Mortal Orchestra.

Plus, DJ sets from Craig Charles, Richard Searling, Ade Croasdell, Stuart Maconie, Nemone, Richy Ahmed, Daniel Avery, Rob da Bank and DJ Yoda.

6 Music Festival Late

I’m particularly proud of this one.

Jamie XX, Fourtet, Mary Anne Hobbs and Gilles Peterson. Back to back: 10pm-2am. I saw an email about sub bass speakers from Mary Anne today. YES!

Firsts

The Festival is proud to have a number of firsts:

• Sleater-Kinney will perform live in the UK – for the first time in almost 10 years;
• Django Django, Ghostport, The Cribs, Lonelady, Public Service Broadcasting, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and The Charlatans are all performing their brand new music for the first time anywhere;
• and, we’ve asked Kate Tempest and Eliza Carthy, SageGateshead Artist in Residence, to collaborate on a unique performance.  
• Jungle will perform with some ‘friends’ - can’t tell you anymore, it’s a surprise on the night.
  
  
  
  

That's just 6 Music Festival By Night ... 

By Day

Last year, we had a Fringe event – which was hugely successful. Tom Robinson performing War Baby – just him and an acoustic guitar – will stay with me for a very long time.  This year, we’re not calling it the Fringe – because those conversations, performances, the poetry, laughing – that’s who we are too. It's the 6 Music Festival By Day.

We’ve been ambitious. We’re in 4 different venues on Saturday in Ouseburn – a creative quarter of Newcastle.  The Cluny will play host to a glut of noisy, brilliant bands like Slug, Girl Band and The Pop Group, who are lauded and applauded by Marc Riley and Tom Ravenscroft; The Cumberland Arms will be hosted by Mark Radcliffe and will be dedicated to Folk, which has a strong tradition and ties in the North East. 

Bryan Ferry - one of Tyne and Wear’s most famous sons is joining us in Ouseburn for a conversation with Lauren Laverne. He isn’t performing that night at the Festival – he’s coming to talk about his work, his career and how the North East shaped him into the artist he became. This will dovetail into a conversation about making music in the North East right now with Paul Smith, David Brewis, Ross Millard, Nadine Shah and Beth Jeans Houghton. 

Over at the Star and Shadow Cinema, Don Letts has curated a programme of films and right next door there will be raucous conversation and performance from Dr John Cooper Clarke and Shaun Keaveny through to the more contemplative Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn in conversation with Gideon Coe. And that’s JUST a slice of Saturday. 

I haven’t even mentioned Sunday… 

Stephenson’s Rocket

The Boiler Shop is now the name for the place where, as Wikipedia puts it, Robert Stephenson built ‘the first steam locomotive to bring together several innovations to produce the most advanced of its day’. It’s a vast brick warehouse and on Sunday it’s where 6 Music Festival By Day takes place. 

Guy Garvey and King Creosote join Tom Robinson to discuss the Art of Songwriting, Gaz Coombes is in conversation with Steve Lamacq and Cerys catches up with Tim Burgess from the Charlatans.  There will be performances, an independent record fair, BBC Introducing bands and Beardyman making an album in an hour.  

Friends

The 6 Music Festival is a real team effort. And it’s not just the team at 6 Music who going above and beyond, with their own mouldy red peppers in their fridges.

We couldn’t do it without the support and immeasurable skill of the BBC Live Music and Events team; BBC North with their ideas and brilliant contact book; The Pop Hub Operations, Multiplatform & Visualisation Teams; and the music industry who are so supportive and re-route tours to accommodate the Festival. 

But, most especially, we couldn’t do it without the artists who want to perform and the audience who want to share what we create together. It makes us at 6Music feel very humble and honoured.

Listen

If you can’t be there – then please do join us on air.  Coverage starts from 1pm with Radcliffe and Maconie this Friday – the live music kicks off with Lammo from 4pm – and continues right across the weekend. You’ll be able to watch the Festival too – on Red Button which kicks off on Friday night – and keep in touch with what we’re doing right across the weekend on all our social media channels.  The 6 Music Festival – don’t miss a note!

Sam Moy is Editor, 6 Music

• The 6 Music Festival gets underway on Friday 20 February and runs until Sunday 22. 
• Listen live, on-demand or draw up your personalised schedule on the festival website. 
• BBC Playlister will be curating a 6 Music Festival playlist for the weekend.
• Follow 6 Music on Twitter. The Festival hashtag is #6MusicFestival.
• Read about 6 Music's recent RAJARs success: now 2 million listeners each week.