A West Dunbartonshire band replaced American rapper Coolio at last weekend’s Eden Festival.
‘Have Mercy Las Vegas’, were planned to play the Rabbie’s Tavern stage at the festival, but due to a lineup change, the band would replace rapper Coolio on the festival’s main stage.
Coolio had to pull out for family reasons.
The change meant that the band played the closest to the headline slot they have ever played at the Dumfries and Galloway event.
Have Mercy Las Vegas took to the stage just before mega acts, like Basement Jaxx and Supergrass.
The band is made up of people from all across West Dunbartonshire. Dumbarton singer Eilidh Trotter said: “I was pleasantly surprised, we’ve been doing the festival for so long that I think the organisers knew they could
trust us.
“We had played the main stage before during the day, but it is different playing a prime time main stage slot.
“That didn’t stop us from being a little bit nervous, but I think the excitement overcame the nerves.”
Before the West Dunbartonshire folk band came out to the main stage, they could hear the crowd singing the Coolio’s hit ‘Gangsters Paradise’, but Eilidh said that they weren’t discouraged, she said: “Our sound is only a little bit different to Coolio” She joked.
“People were expecting Coolio, and the encouraging thing was they
stayed.
“They were expecting one thing and got something totally different, but we got a really warm reaction.
“The theme for the festival was lampshades, so when I looked out onto the crowd it was just a sea of lights, and it looked amazing, especially at
night.”
The band have been playing the Eden festival since 2011, and this year was their 10th time, but with a new drummer - Grant.
Grant has played in other bands before, but they were Rock n’ Roll bands, so it was a bit of a transition moving to folk music.
Grant spoke on how it felt to play in front of thousands of people at Eden Festival, he said: “I have played smaller festivals, but I have only ever been to Eden as a punter.
“I had never played anything of the size of Eden before, and it was strange being on the other side.
“We got told that we were going to play the main stage, which was daunting because before that the most I had played in front of was under 1000 people, and there were about 4000 people at the main stage.”
Have Mercy Las Vegas are currently recording their second album which they hope to get out by the end of the year.
Alongside this, they are playing a few more festivals including, Kelburn Garden Party, Doune the Rabbit hole and Bute Fest.
