South Manchester Bar Stages UK’s Only Bob Dylan Festival

South Manchester’s M19 bar in Levenshulme is once again staging the UK’s Bob Dylan Festival attracting acts and fans from all over the world.  The three day festival will be staged during the August bank holiday weekend from Friday 28 August to Sunday 30 August.

 

This year the festival has teamed up with its counterpart in Moville in County Donegal in Ireland with some of the Manchester acts appearing there in July before playing the Manchester festival in August.  The festival is one of only seven Bob Dylan Festivals in the world, the other cities are California, Michigan, Berlin, North Italy, Melbourne in Australia.

 

One of the acts appearing in both festivals is ‘Mickey the Hat’ who during last years festival in Manchester appeared on the award winning Irish radio programme ‘The Full Irish’.  He said about his appearance in this years festival “I had a great time last year and I am really looking forward to appearing in both of these festivals this year.  I have managed to secure an appearance on all three days in Manchester and I am running the open mic sessions in Moville.”

 

Acousticfest - the organisers of the festival are promoted by twenty one year old James Hennigan. He said about the weekend’s festival “Bob Dylan has always had a massive connection with Irish artists, he was heavily influenced by the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.  It is well documented about how Dylan used to hang out in the Irish pub ‘The White Horse’ in New York, where the Clancy’s played he took the tunes of the Clancy songs which were old Irish songs and put in his own words.  We had a lot of visitors from Ireland last year and are expecting even more this year.”

 

The Festival kicks off with a special Irish night on Friday 28th August to launch the weekend.  It features Shake the Barley, Bernadette O’Grady, Reckless Elbow, Tina McKevitt and Matt Hegarty, Mickey the Hat, Peter Aldridge and Andy Keeble. While on the Saturday we are looking at paying tribute to Bob Dylan’s Blues influences.  The Line up for Saturday includes Bullfrog Brown who are being sponsored by the Estonian Embasssy.  Other acts appearing are Oyana and the Sun Collective, Shimeon, Ged Wilson, Josh McClurg, Joanna Lyon, Glyn Bailey & the Splendid things, Mickey the Hat and James Munroe.  The final night on Sunday is a tribute to Bob’s Country influences and is headlined Jersey Budd who has just released a CD featuring the vocals of Kasabian’s frontman Tom Meighan.  Jersey has just appeared at Glastonbury and has been on tour with Kasbian promoting his new single ‘She came back’.  The main reason Jersey got into music was his love of Bob Dylan and festival is delighted to secure his services to finish off the weekend.  Other acts appearing on Sunday are Mickey the Hat, Heroes of She, John Jaobs, Chris Selman, Bobhowla, Get on the Boat, Laney Murphy and the Hybrids and John Newsham.

 

Acousticfest is fast gaining itself as a reputation for being one of the UK’s premier venues for Acoustic showcases with acts coming from as far away as Australia to play the intimate venue in South Manchester. 

 

Shake the Barley, Bernadette O’Grady, Reckless Elbow, Tina McKevitt and Matt Hegarty, Mickey the Hat, Peter Aldridge and Andy Keeble

 

Bullfrog Brown, Oyana and the Sun Collective, Shimeon, Ged Wilson, Josh McClurg, Joanna Lyon, Glyn Bailey & the Splendid things, Mickey the Hat and James Munroe

 

Jersey Budd, Mickey the Hat, Heroes of She, John Jaobs, Chris Selman, Bobhowla, Get on the Boat, Laney Murphy and the Hybrids and John Newsham.

 

M19 Bar, 847 Stockport Road, Levenshulme, Manchester, M19 3pw

Tel 0161 224 8135  www.m19bar.com