Gor­geous inde­pen­dent Cor­nish fes­ti­val Port Eliot Fes­ti­val has unveiled the first set of artists for 2019. Set on the ancient St Ger­mans estate, the fes­ti­val runs from 25–28 July 2019. Tick­ets and full details at porteliotfestival.com 

LARGE THURSDAY line-up for week­end tick­ethold­ers head­lined by Aldous Harding. 

OPEN FIRE STAGE & Geor­gian Big Kitchen fea­tur­ing the country’s finest chefs. This year, the fes­ti­val will open a deli­cious, new and invit­ing foody relax­ation spot right next to the House, run by St Agnes’s Can­teen Corn­wall. Impromp­tu long-table din­ners for hun­dreds of din­ers will also spring up unexpectedly.

Park­our class­es, Aard­man Ani­ma­tion, life draw­ing, Cana­di­an canoe­ing, pho­tog­ra­phy, archery, & med­i­ta­tive botan­i­cal illus­tra­tion are among hun­dreds of workshops 

Venues

Port Eliot Venues You can pop into venues emerge all over the rolling park­land and woods. From the old­est church in Corn­wall to the jump­ing Ace of Clubs bar, the cul­tured dis­cus­sions of The Idler Acad­e­my, fam­i­ly adven­tures with­in Wildlings Wood, via the for­ward-think­ing style of the Fash­ion Foun­da­tion, and the bub­bling caul­dron of ideas in the Bowl­ing Green. 

Music – Caught by the River

There’s a fan­tas­tic roll call of music (and this isn’t all of it, the team are busy adding more to the line­up). A true treat for week­end tick­ethold­ers, this year begins with a LARGE THURSDAY of per­for­mances, head­lined by one of the most cap­ti­vat­ing cur­rent artists any­where – Aldous Hard­ing. Her next record is one of the year’s most antic­i­pat­ed (her sec­ond LP, Par­ty, was named Rough Trade Shop’s Album of the Year in 2017) and her head­line show is a must-see on the first night of the fes­ti­val. Just added to the line­up are Work­ing Men’s Club: it’s been a mete­oric rise for this young post-punk out­fit with a new sin­gle out called Bad Blood, cur­rent­ly get­ting plen­ty of air­play on BBC6 music (inter­view with them here).

Port Eliot dusk at the bar
Port Eliot fes­ti­val – © CFaruolo

Friday’s Caught by the Riv­er head­lin­ers are Beak. Count­ing Portishead’s Geoff Bar­row in their ranks, Beak will build and build until the roof lifts off. 

Sat­ur­day head­lin­ers are inspi­ra­tional elec­tropop show­steal­ers, Steal­ing Sheep. Heavy, hard and weird new LP, Big Wows is just around the corner. 

Sun­day sees the return to Port Eliot of The Orielles. Last year’s debut LP, Sil­ver Dol­lar Moment, was a blast and most recent sin­gle, Bobbi’s Sec­ond World, flies all over the place in a funky, shak­ing whirl of which we hearti­ly approve. This will be a giant fes­ti­val finale par­ty com­plete with (cow)bells and whistles. 

Words and more…

Port Eliot began as a lit­er­ary fes­ti­val and words are at its heart. This year’s line-up includes Emi­ly Maitlis; Infi­nite Mon­key Cage pre­sen­ter, come­di­an, actor and writer, Robin Ince.

Also Mar­tin Parr, explor­ing both his ret­ro­spec­tive, Only Human, and Space Dogs, a new book gath­er­ing togeth­er his col­lec­tion of space dog arte­facts and ephemera, in con­ver­sa­tion with Guardian art crit­ic Jonathan Jones, who will also dis­cuss his new rad­i­cal new his­to­ry of British Art, Sen­sa­tions: The Sto­ry of British Art from Hog­a­rth to Banksy.

Also on the words line­up:
Philoso­pher and People’s Vote cham­pi­on, A.C. Grayling;
Jour­nal­ist, stand-up and author of How to Own the Room, Viv Groskop; Cap­i­tal nov­el­ist John Lan­ches­ter;
Radio doyen, trav­el writer, broad­cast­er and champ of Lon­don, Robert Elms;
British music writ­ing and pub­lish­ing stal­wart, broad­cast­er and Smash Hits hero, David Hep­worth;
Nov­el­ist Max Porter, whose first nov­el, Grief is the Thing with Feath­ers won many awards and will hit the stage with Cil­lian Mur­phy this spring.

Writer Will Ashon, whose new book, Cham­ber Music is a foren­sic exam­i­na­tion of the Wu Tang Clan’s debut LP, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Cham­bers – see my review of Will Ashon inter­view here.

Will Ashon (right) will talk about his new book Cham­ber Music

Tick­ets and full details at porteliotfestival.com 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *