Scottish indie rockers Glasvegas will head this year’s Spree festival in Paisley.
Super Furry Animals singer Gruff Rhys, soul singer PP Arnold and Hue and Cry are among the acts coming to town in October.
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The festival will take place over nine days from 11 to 19 October with the bulk of the action in a specially-erected spiegeltent beside Paisley Gilmour Street station.
Events will be held in a bigger tent than in previous years, allowing 500-person shows.
Now in its eighth year, the festival is one of the centrepieces of Renfrewshire Council’s major events programme which has made Paisley one of Scotland’s key cultural destinations in recent years.
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The Spree 2019 was programmed by Regular Music – who work with some of the biggest names in the industry as the team behind the Summer Nights at Kelvingrove Bandstand and the Edinburgh Castle Concerts – and is this year sponsored by Tennent’s Lager.
The festival kicks off on Friday, October 11 with a tribute to one of Paisley’s most celebrated musical sons – A Gerry Rafferty Songbook, featuring Roddy Hart, Emma Pollock and Rab Noakes.
Monday 14 sees Hue and Cry in the spiegeltent – a fitting venue and location for the band seeing as one of their biggest hits, Looking for Linda, was set on a train to Paisley.
Platinum-selling indie-rockers Glasvegas perform their only full-band Scottish date of the year the next night, before Gruff Rhys brings his solo show to the spiegeltent on Wednesday 16.
London’s First Lady of Soul PP Arnold is next up on Thursday 17 with songs from her six-decade career working with stars including Rod Stewart and the Small Faces, Barry Gibb, David Bowie, Eric Clapton and Oasis.
The Friday night sees multi-award-winning singer-songwriter Karine Polwart bring her Scottish Songbook – a collection of Scottish pop classic spanning more than 50 years.
And the festival ends on Saturday 19 with anarchic magic from comedy headliner Jerry Sadowitz, followed by what will be a lively late-night closing party all the way from Tennessee, USA, with the inventors of rockgrass Hayseed Dixie.
There’s also two late-night comedy shows on Friday 11 and 18, headlined by Mark Nelson and Gary Little and compered by Fred MacAulay and local lad Scott Gibson.
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Renfrewshire Leisure are programming Spree shows at Paisley Arts Centre.
Those announced so far include: Lost Map’s Lost Weekend Sunday Social featuring the Pictish Trail, Fell, Molly Linen and Callum Easter; Paisley in Song featuring Michael Cassidy and Andy Monahan from Frightened Rabbit and ex-Arab Strap musician Malcolm Middleton plus support.
The spiegeltent will also host an all-day festival within-a-festival on Saturday 12 with LNP Promotions ever-popular ModStuff celebration of all things Mod, for which the lineup will be confirmed soon.
Tickets for all shows go on sale at 10am on Friday through thespree.co.uk and www.ticketweb.uk
More will be added to the bill over the summer with details still to be announced for The Wee Spree – a programme of children’s entertainment over the October school holidays – and the Spree for All fringe festival, with a range of shows in other venue across Renfrewshire.
Duncan Frew, Tennent’s commercial and marketing director, added: “Tennent’s are delighted to partner with the Spree Festival in 2019.
“The festival continues to go from strength to strength, developing a national profile through an impressive programme of local and international artists and activity. We look forward to working with organisers and local community to help build on this success.”
For more information on the festival, see www.thespree.co.uk and for more on what’s happening in Paisley visit www.paisley.is
