Lindsay Hannon heads to Burton Agnes Jazz and Blues Festival (1-3 July) with her band this summer. She says festivals are about good music and good people – you can keep your flowered headbands.
How would you describe your sound?
Occasionally confrontational, occasionally sweet but always committed. I love a good blues growl and I don’t think voices that are flawless are necessarily the best or the most appealing to me. Think Tom Waits, Bjork.
Tell us what you’ve been up to since last summer?
I’ve been to Norway to work with an excellent band, Quintus, and play a festival with them, lots of gigs with the Plus, recording an album with my lady band (don’t you love that term? “lady band”) ICENI, and writing songs for the next album with the Plus. And endless emailing. Which I hate!
What festivals are you playing this year?
We’ll be at Burton Agnes Jazz festival, Gateshead International Jazz festival, Congleton Jazz & Blues festival, Darlington Jazz Festival and then some more mainstream festivals with ICENI.
Who else are you excited to see at the festivals?
Loads of folk! From the jazz festivals, pianist Zoë Rahman, sax trio Blind Monk, vocalists Lianne Carol and Ian Shaw and new trio Malija.
If you could curate your own festival what would the line-up look like with artists dead or alive?
Frank Zappa, Marlene Dietrich, The Eels, Led Zeppelin, Monk, Ella Fitzgerald, Richard Dawson and the Floyd. To start with.
What’s your best festival memory?
Watching Roger Waters at Glastonbury doing Comfortably Numb. At the lyric ‘There’ll be no more /ARRGGGH” half of us all screamed mightily on cue and the other half of the audience shit themselves.
What’s in your festival survival kit?
Anorak, sunglasses and a drink. You can keep your flowered headbands.
Apart from music, what should the ideal festival have?
Good-tempered, open-minded people.
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