Friday night’s line up for this year’s Galtres Festival has just been announced, with The Buzzcocks headlining the Duke Stage, supported by Simon and Oscar from Ocean Colour Scene performing a special acoustic show.

Also playing Friday will be The Bluetones’ frontman Mark Morriss, Chris Helme (ex The Seahorses) playing his new album The Rookery, and Heather Findlay (ex Mostly Autumn) with a set from her new band.

With Saturday’s headliners still to be revealed, the Friday line-up adds to some big names confirmed for Sunday which include Billy Bragg, Seth Lakeman, The Men They Couldn’t Hang, and The Travelling Band.

This year’s festival also includes a series of curated stages, with Ellen & the Escapades topping a Leeds Stage, The Talks headlining the Hull stage, and Jon Gomm concluding the ‘Solid Air Sessions’ – a feast of guitar maestros. On Sunday a folk and roots stage will be topped by Seth Lakeman with Boss Caine, Aelfen and Three Sheets t’Wind.

“This year’s music programme is rapidly turning into our best ever,” commented festival director James Houston, who started Galtres Festival at the back of the local pub eight years ago. “I wish I could tell you who Saturday’s headliners are, but even without them this is extremely enticing. We went to see Buzzcocks last year and they put on a storming show, and we find that bands always seem to excel themselves at Galtres. Can’t wait for that – or for the OCS acoustic show which has rave reviews. Very excited!”

Formed in Manchester, England, in 1975, the Buzzcocks were one of the most influential bands to emerge in the initial wave of punk rock. With their crisp melodies, driving guitars, and guitarist Pete Shelley’s biting lyrics, the Buzzcocks were one of the best, most influential punk bands. The Buzzcocks were inspired by the Sex Pistols’ energy, yet they didn’t copy the Pistols’ angry political stance. Instead, they brought that intense, brilliant energy to the three-minute pop song. Shelley’s alternately funny and anguished lyrics about adolescence and love were some of the best and smartest of his era; similarly, the Buzzcocks’ melodies and hooks were concise and memorable. Over the years, their powerful punk-pop has proven enormously influential, with echoes of their music being apparent in everyone from Hüsker Dü to Nirvana.

Falling between the energetic pop/rock of mod revival and the psychedelic experimentations of Traffic, Ocean Colour Scene came to be one of the leading bands of the traditionalist, post-Oasis British rock of the mid-’90s. Although they had formed in the late ’80s and had several hits during the height of Madchester in the early ’90s, the band didn’t earn a large following until 1996, when their second album, Moseley Shoals, became a multi-platinum success story in the U.K. Their ascent was greatly aided by Paul Weller and Oasis’ Noel Gallagher, who both publicly praised Ocean Colour Scene for keeping the flame of real rock & roll burning during the ’90s. They are bringing to Galtres Festival 2012 their highly-acclaimed acoustic show with Simon Fowler and Oscar Harrison.

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By Andy on April 4, 2012