Festival Focus: Mark Graham Of King Kong Company On Upcoming Festivals

We’ve got loads of festivals this summer. The first one we’ve got lined up is Life Festival, out in Westmeath, then we’ve got a busy June. We’re headlining Vantastival and we’re really looking forward to that. We’ve always loved that festival. There’s been a couple of years where we haven’t performed at it, and when we don’t go, we always missed it.

There was one year very recently where we flew into Dublin on the day it started and raced up the motorway just to be at it. So to get the chance to headline this year is great, because we worked our way up through the ranks to get to that position as headliners.

In terms of acts playing at it, we’re looking forward to seeing Afro Celt Sound System – I haven’t seen them in a long time and they’re always worth a look. Then Jinx Lennon – I always love seeing Jinx, either at festivals or gigs, as he’s one of the top performers. I’ll be going to TPM as well, and Junior Brother’s fantastic too.

The day after Vantastival we’re playing Fever Pitch in Galway and that’s the start of a busy month. Right after, we’re playing Doolin Folk Festival – if you’d believe they’d have us at a folk festival! Then in the middle of June is Body & Soul. That’s always a big one and we love playing there. The Body & Soul stage at Electric Picnic was one of the first chances we got to play on a big stage, so we love going to that festival. We’ve always had a good association with them.

We’re also playing the new Kaleidoscope Festival this June. That might seem a bit odd for us because it’s for families! But something that we’ve done a lot, especially in our Body & Soul shows, is take our dancing show and our boxheads and do a… a very tame version of our live shows for the Kids Area at that festival. The kids love that and we’re looking forward to doing it again.

After that, we’ve also got All Together Now in August, which is like a homecoming gig for us, and a few more later on that we can’t mention yet. Busy summer for us!

King Kong Company will perform at Vantastival, Drogheda on June 1; Fever Pitch Festival, Galway (June 2); Doolin Folk Festival (June 16-18); Body & Soul (June 21-23); Kaleidoscope Festival (June 28-30); and All Together Now (August 3-5).