Britpop legends Ocean Colour Scene will be headlining the Saturday night of this summer’s Sign of The Times Festival, which is held just over the Essex border in Hertfordshire. And organisers have described the announcement as “a real coup”. Famous for hit singles including The Day We Caught the Train, Hundred Mile High City and The Riverboat Song as well as No 1 album Marchin’ Already, they are a strong addition to an already impressive line-up.
The popular three-day festival takes places across two stages at Church End, near Little Hadham, from Friday, June 20 to Sunday, June 22. Ocean Colour Scene are the final Main Stage headline act to be announced, with 10cc toppling the bill on the opening night and Embrace doing the honours on the Sunday.
Other acts already confirmed include Midge Ure, Haircut 100, Roachford, Elvana, Newton Faulkner, Ferocious Dog, Los Pacaminos featuring Paul Young, former Stranglers frontman Hugh Cornwell, Gun, The Blockheads and Skinny Lister.
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Ocean Colour Scene’s life-affirming sing-alongs are tailor-made for the festival fields and they remain one of the most successful and well-loved-bands of the modern era. Having spent six years fine-tuning their sound, they lit up the Britpop party, chalking up three top five albums and a run of nine successive top 20 singles.
In total they have 17 top 40 singles and six top 10 singles to their name. In the years since, they’ve honed their craft in the spirit of the soul, folk and blues greats who inspired them- returning the favour in 2018 when they took Martha Reeves and The Vandellas out on tour.
“We couldn’t quite believe that Martha Reeves was supporting us, it seemed absurd,” said frontman Simon Fowler. “But our crowd loved it, she went down really well.”
Organisers of the festival are thrilled with their latest announcement. With a nod to the reunion of Ocean Colour Scene’s contemporaries, Oasis, this summer they said: “We are delighted to have such a legendary name headline Sign of The Times on Saturday, June 21.
“In a year which is huge for Brit Pop, to have Ocean Colour Scene join us is a real coup and we can’t wait for the weekend to be here.”
The final additions to the bill are due to be announced soon. Weekend camping is available to festival-goers on site and there will be plenty of bars and food outlets in the arena.
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