Splendour Confidential

Jake Bugg © Nottingham Confidential

Whilst the current epic heatwave conveniently decided to take a Saturday off and cool things down a few comfortable notches, everything else was hotting up way off the scale at Nottingham's Wollaton Park for Splendour Festival.

KT Tunstall© Nottingham Confidential

With music across three stages, comedy, stalls, cabaret and fairground rides set in the lush and glorious grounds of Wollaton Hall, this year's line-up ranged from singer songwriter KT Tunstall to pop princess Nina Nesbitt, post-punk pop rockers Squeeze and alternative rock band Maximo Park.

Confidential highlights included Peter Hook and The Light belting out Love Will Tear Us Apart amidst a legendarily mighty Joy Division/New Order set on the Jagermeister stage to a thrilled and bouncing crowd, whilst over on the main stage Dog is Dead keyboardist Joss Van Wilder leapt off stage and dived merrily into pure Nottingham mosh to crowd surf, getting swallowed up and reappearing held aloft, upside down, legs sticking out v-shaped in the air.

Shane Meadows
© Nottingham Confidential

Meanwhile over at The Funhouse Comedy Stage compère Craig Murray was handling the crowd well, engaging with audience members and poking gentle fun at the few who dared come under his gaze. Catching the Raymond and Mr Timpkins Revue, a "mostly" silent act with a mash-up soundtrack, the act interpreted these songs with placards and actions, quite often leading the audience to hear lyrics by suggestion and proving all in all to be funny and entertaining.

Meanwhile backstage we bumped into a very friendly and happy looking Nottingham film director Shane Meadows whilst Nottingham singer Indiana talked excitedly about playing the main stage and her imminent baby arrival in September and Harleighblu told us she couldn't wait for her new album to come out.

Indiana © Nottingham Confidential

But in this year's heavily Nottingham-centric Splendour with fifteen acts from around the city playing around the three stages, the festival still thoroughly belonged to one legendary local lad, recently dubbed the 'coolest boy in Britain'. Whilst teenage girls with neon face-paint splashes and daisy flower chains in their hair squashed up at the front of the main stage, headline act Nottingham's Jake Bugg appeared to ear-splitting screams and roars from the crowd and launched into Fire from his debut album and played a set that included choice covers together with songs from his upcoming second album, whipping up Wollaton into a splendid splendour of Bugg-mania.

Harleighblu © Nottingham Confidential

Wollaton may not be far from his home in Clifton, but it's a long way from where Jake Bugg is currently recording his new album- in Malibu. So how's that second album going? "It's going really well, I'm really enjoying it," Jake told us confidentially, smiling and looking happy and relaxed talking about it. "I've got about twenty songs and I'm going back at the end of August after all these festivals to go and finish it off, it's just an inspiring place to be as well, Malibu, it's a million miles away from where I grew up, the sea is blue, there are lemon trees blowing in the air and it feels like it's cut off from civilisation as well and it's just like a holiday for me."

Talking about Splendour being "the first proper festival" he's headlining, Jake adds that as it's his home town it really "feels like an achievement" but that he "can't get distracted by a familiar face in the crowd" and goes on to comment on the burgeoning Nottingham music scene "it's brilliant to see it evolving and becoming something really important."

Friendly, politely shaking hands with press on meeting and departure, Jake Bugg comes across as impressively grounded and instantly endearing and likeable, the ultimate local boy made good, and with so much more promised to come from him, confidentially we predict it will all continue to be equally Splendid.

You can see lots and lots more photos from Splendour  in our Facebook photo album here

Dog is Dead© Nottingham Confidential