UK Blues Festival 2025

Blackpool, England. Friday 31-January/Sunday 02-February-2025.

A return to Blackpool following the inaugural event last year. Booked shortly after it finished to take advantage of the early bird reduced ticket deal. Mary mentioned this to a group of her girl friends who expressed an interest so we were joined by Andrea and Christine. 

We used home exchange for our accommodation, a house that clearly doubles as a B&B during the summer months judging by the individual locks on each room and a dining room / lounge for residents.

We arrived on the Thursday night before the festival started and got settled into our accommodation. Rather than eat out we dined in on chicken and chorizo gumbo out of our freezer.

The organisers changed the arrangements from last year. Previously the main stage was in the cavernous Empress Ballroom which, while impressive, was not so good acoustically. This year they used a couple of the conference rooms which worked better although there was more distance to walk between them. 

During the afternoon sessions they had three stages in operation: the Main stage, the Acoustic stage and the Introducing stage. In the evening it was just the Main stage (although on Friday they reused the Introducing Stage for a couple of bands). The Introducing Stage is for less well known bands. You get to vote for your favourite each day and the winner gets a slot on the Main stage the following year.

This room was the venue for the Acoustic stage. A lovely Victorian pub room. 

Previously I have dashed from stage to stage to see as many acts as possible. This year I kept my FOMO under control and spent more time static which allowed our friends to rush from stage to stage to see multiple acts whilst I guarded our seats.

Friday 31st January.

Josie Field (Acoustic). A mezzo soprano with a lovely smooth, pure voice. She is more about the voice than the guitar playing.

Chantel McGregor (Acoustic). By contrast Chantel is more about the guitar than the voice. A regular act from Solid Entertainment’s stable but somehow she just doesn’t do it for me despite her awards and devoted following.

Dom Martin (Acoustic). A Lad from Belfast who we have seen twice before and been impressed with so we were pleased to see that he was on the lineup twice, once acoustic and once with his band. His set included a John Martyn song to confuse one of our party who had misheard his name.

In the intermission we went out for supper at Twisted Indian. It describes itself as Indian Street Food but that’s just marketing BS it is a normal Indian restaurant. We ate there last year and were happy to return.

Thomas Heppell (Introducing). One of several power trios of the festival. Hard rocking blues.

True Strays (Main). Some complex drumming going on behind the guitarists.

Chantel McGregor Band (Main). Obviously louder and more uptempo than the acoustic set but still not enough to send us to the merch table.

Alice Armstrong (was Introducing). We all agreed this lady is good. She belts out the songs with gusto.

Aynsley Lister (Main). Friday’s headliner, a ZZ Top style set. Excellent rocking music.

Saturday 01.

Blue Nation (Main). Rocking humorists with much entertaining banter between the songs. We liked their so much that we bought two of their CDs.

Long Road Home (Main). Last year’s Introducing stage winners. Their prize - a slot on the main stage this year.

Kyla Brox (Introducing). Belting it out in style, a powerful bluesy voice.

Ken Pustelnik’s Groundhogs (Main). Featuring Ken the drummer from the original Groundhogs still playing at 78. Definitely solidly in the Rock category.

Albany Down (Introducing). Don’t remember much about this set.

Supper was at Turtle Bay, a Caribbean restaurant where I had jerk chicken with rice and beans. FUn and fairly basic but then I wasn’t expecting haute cuisine.

The Milk Men (Main). We’ve seen them before and were impressed. A cracking show - kind of Dr Feelgood meets ZZ Top.

The Hitman Blues Band (Main). Definitely American.

Dom Martin Band (Main). Having enjoyed the acoustic set we now get the full band treatment. He is going from strength to strength. Mary thought he was sublime.

Sunday 02.

Kris Riviere (Introducing). Warm Delta blues. Got my vote for the Introducing act of the day.

Son Jack Jnr. (Acoustic). Jangly slide guitar reminded me of Mississippi John Hurt.

Tom Killner (Main). A bit twangy - a hint of country in there.

Lightning Threads. On the Introducing stage  

Jack J Hutchinson (Acoustic). Classic singer/songwriter. Excellent.

Bag’O’Bones (Introducing). Full tilt boogie with some nice slide guitar work.

Snake Oil Band (Main). Old school blues complete with harp.

Sloetrain (Introducing). Another blues band but I wondered if they still have day jobs.

Supper was at Umami, a pan-global buffet restaurant - for a fixed price you could eat as much as you wanted. There was a huge range of choices - something for everyone - and the quality was surprisingly good.

Willie Barrett and John Otway (Main). They are a one hit wonder with “Really Free”. I was not expecting a hilariously funny, laugh out loud performance from this pair.

A comedy musical act complete with Bagpuss bagpipes.

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown (Main). Apart from “Fire” I knew nothing of his music. Turns out the band put on a rocking set with a bonkers collection of caped outfits from the theatrical eponymous frontman. 

King King (Main). Mary knew of this band by reputation, I’d never heard of them and they were an excellent Rock band (from Scotland) The kilt wearing lead singer and guitarist made me laugh, he said he’s going to keep on playing as long as he can. His ideal is to “cark it on stage like Tommy Cooper“. 

There was a man in front of me videoing the show with the flash on. 1) the light does nothing to illuminate the stage thanks to the inverse square law and 2) the light is a clear signal that you are videoing the performance which in some venues could get you chucked out. What a Muppet!

We enjoyed it so much we have already snapped up tickets for 2026!