We’re extremely proud to announce that Caught by the River will be hosting a stage at the official reopening of the Olympic Park this summer. The Open East Festival takes place at the newly relandscaped and rechristened Queen Elizabeth Park in Stratford on the weekend of July 27th and 28th – exactly one year on from the London 2012 Opening Ceremony.
The festival – a collaboration between the Barbican and Create – will be the first time most people will have a chance to see the park before it opens to the public in August. The Caught by the River stage will be situated on the banks of the river Lea as it runs past the Velodrome and down towards the stadium. Over the two days of the festival, we’ll host talks, DJs, bands and readings as well as a load of interesting booze at our Ten Mile Beer Festival (the clue being in the name – no beers will travel further than ten miles – the distance of the Sambrooks Brewery to the park, everything else will be picked up along the way).
Saturday’s line up (with a headliner TBC) includes… Charlie Boyer and The Voyeurs– playing ‘primitive, sexy, glamorous rock’n’roll’ (NME); DJ Rhys Webb (The Horrors) – chief music head in one of the most reliably brilliant British rock’n’roll bands around; The Rockingbirds, AKA the greatest country and western band ever to hail from London town; Jeb Loy Nichols – acoustic songwriter, storyteller and soul man, Jeb is a regular Caught by the River contributor and a Midwestern émigré now living in the Midwest of Wales; Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou, the husband and wife duo who play acoustic songs straight from the heart (of England); Bob Stanley & Pete Paphides in conversation with Pete about Bob’s forthcoming book, Yeah Yeah Yeah, a history of pop music; Michael Smith – a true literary libertine, the Culture Show’s Michael Smith will read from his forthcoming book about London (to be published by Faber later this year) and Travis Elborough – the brilliant pop cultural historian who will be talking about the relocation of London Bridge to the Arizonian desert
Sunday’s line up… Wire, the perennial post-punk band who’ve hit a creative peak in 2013 by releasing an album made up of songs they wrote back in the late ’70s; Stealing Sheep, the Heavenly all girl trio who play star gazing psychedelic pop music; Le Volume Courbe, a European dream pop band, fresh from touring with My Bloody Valentine; DJ Don Letts, the original Roxy DJ, brings a full on punky reggae party; Viv Albertine: singer and songwriter, formerly of the Slits, who will be reading from her forthcoming memoir (Clothes Clothes Clothes, Music Music Music, Boys Boys Boys) and playing songs from her recently released debut solo LP the Vermillion Border; Emma Warren will host Here Me Now! – a panel discussion about London’s most influential pirate radio stations (guests TBC); Ian Rawes (the man behind the London Sound Survey) will be talking about the sound of the city; Tom Bolton, the author of London’s Lost Rivers will be talking about the capital’s submerged waterways and John Andrews & Charles Rangeley-Wilson with Silt Road meets Babylon Uptown, where the two angling writers talking about the history of the area around the Olympic Park and reading from CRW’s new book Silt Road and JA’s contribution to Caught by the River’s Words on Water collection.
Tickets are only £9.50 per day and will be available to residents of the Olympic boroughs from Friday and to the general public on Monday (more information here).