Interview: Solardo, one of the headliners at Cambridgeshire’s Hifields Festival
Popular house music duo Solardo are to headline the ‘Lost Woods’ stage this Saturday (July 31) at the Hifields Festival in Chippenham Park, Cambridgeshire.
The festival will be taking place this Saturday and Sunday as Hifields unveils its biggest line-up yet at an all-new venue. Other acts scheduled to perform include Terry Farley, Wilkinson, Will Taylor, DJ Luck & MC Neat, Jaguar Skills, Nicky Blackmarket, Scouting for Girls, Prospa, and Artful Dodger. As well as live music, there will be huge art installations, a circus, a fairground and a food park.
Solardo are production duo Mark Richards and James Eliot. Speaking to the Cambridge Independent from Marbella, where he is on holiday with his family - and Mark - James says he "can’t wait" for this weekend’s festival, adding: "Last weekend we did the first couple of proper unsocially distanced shows, and it was just...
"Because of everything that's going on, just to get it off your chest and just to see the people standing side-by-side, dancing and having fun - and hearing proper sound systems... I could smell it in the air that it [live performance] is coming back but, on the other hand, if we do have a surge in cases, is it going to go back into lockdown? Still very uncertain times but I'm savouring every moment at the minute."
The gig the duo did last weekend was on Blackpool pier, in an event put on by Danny Howard. James and Mark appeared alongside the likes of Fatboy Slim and Franky Wah. "It was really good and then we played at an event in Stoke," said James. "It was absolutely incredible - every time we go to Stoke anyway, the crowd's really up for it. Then we literally flew to our holiday the following morning."
Solardo have been doing socially distanced gigs in their native Manchester over the past year, before restrictions were eased, and James and Mark have also been busy making music. "It gave us a lot of time to focus on the record labels and stuff," said James, who spent part of lockdown in Dubai, "and I also like fishing, so I did quite a lot of that throughout lockdown. Just very bizarre times."
Solardo will be making their debut at Hifields. "This is the first time we've done it but I've heard really good things about it," said James, "and I've looked at the line-up - on our stage there’s Prospa, Franky Wah, some really amazing up-and-coming talent... The line-up’s incredible and there’s a lot of stages."
The Hifields Festival is also giving 1,000 tickets to NHS staff. The ticket link is here: bluelighttickets.co.uk/event/193. For more on the festival, go to hifields.com.
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