Come the last weekend of July they will be dancing in the streets of Stockton-On-Tees. To help celebrate the 50th anniversary of ‘Dancing In The Street’ the Stockton Weekender festival this year welcomes genuine Motown legends Martha Reeves and the Vandellas to its centrally located site on the banks of the River Tees. Joining them in the County Durham market town on Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th July will be the band that has come out of retirement almost as many times as Frank Sinatra, and who will include in their number original members, UFO investigator Shaun Ryder and would-be Parliamentarian and top maracas’ shaker Bez, none other than Manchester’s magnificent Happy Mondays.
Also turning back the clock to another era will be Public Enemy, probably the definitive rap group of all time and whose reputation was built on the still revolutionary trilogy of albums they released in the late ‘80s, Yo! Bum Rush the Show, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and the classic Fear of a Black Planet.
Love may well have torn him apart from New Order, but the man who also slung his bass guitar way down low in Joy Division will be on Teesside that weekend. Expect to hear more from Unknown Pleasures and Closer than you will from Low-Life or Technique when Peter Hook & The Light come to town.
Hot on the heels of the release of their fourth album, the chart-bursting 13, Sheffield’s Reverend and The Makers prove that it isn’t all about the past, something that the Glaswegian trio The Amazing Snakeheads and a whole host of other yet-to-be-announced emerging acts will firmly endorse.
Running alongside its two main music stages, the Stockton Weekender offers weekend camping, funfair, a Kaleidoscope Kids Area plus a Cabaret, Music & Comedy Tent – to where stand-up comic Simon Brodkin will bring his most famous character Lee Nelson.
Expect many more top-notch acts to be unveiled over the next few weeks.
Early Bird Weekend prices are £35 and £65 for camping. Ticket prices will increase in price from 1st May onwards. Each adult ticket entitles the holder to 2 free Under 14s tickets. To improve accessibility, a pay-in-instalments scheme has also been introduced this year. All ticketing information can be found on the festival website here:
