Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival have announced that legendary multi- Grammy Award winning musician and producer Nile Rodgers + Chic and Scottish pop/soul artist Emeli Sandé will headline the 17th outing of the festival.
Nile Rodgers transcends all styles of music across every generation with a body of work that’s garnered him inductions into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
With over 340 million video views, 19 million singles sold including 3 Number One UK singles and over 6 million albums, Emeli Sandé has dominated the music industry and captured the heart of the nation. The Aberdonian has won 4 Brit Awards and in 2018 was awarded an MBE for services to music.
Belladrum takes place in the beautiful Highland surroundings of Belladrum Estate, near Beauly in Inverness-shire. The independent festival has built a reputation for its eclectic line-ups, its offbeat non-musical entertainments and its all-ages approach. The festival won a VisitScotland Thistle Award in 2009 and is a past winner of the Grassroots Festival Award at the UK Festival Awards, the festival industry’s ‘oscars’.
Dougie Brown, Event Producer said: ‘We are delighted to announce Nile Rodgers & Chic and Emeli Sandé as our first headliners for Belladrum 2020. Nile Rodgers & Chic have been at the top of our wish list for many years and we are certain their set will go down as one of Bella’s standout moments. Emeli Sandé played the festival’s Grassroots tent in 2011 when she was starting out and to have seen the journey she has been on and to see come back and headline the festival’s Thursday night will be another special moment at Bella.’
Other acts announced include the welcome return of Norwegian ‘float pop’ trio called I See Rivers, who we first met at Belladrum in 2016 where they performed an acoustic version of their beautiful track, Be Cool. See the session below.
In further line-up announcements Shed Seven will be making a return to the festival having last appeared way back in 2009 and Ivor Novello award winning songwriter Passenger will make his Belladrum debut.
Also announced: Belfast punk royalty Stiff Little Fingers; Scotland’s Tide Lines; The Magic Numbers (celebrating 15 years since their self-titled multi-platinum debut album; festival favourites Colonel Mustard & The Dijon Five, electronic Afro-funk outfit Ibibio Sound Machine; multi-award winning Scottish Supergroup Mànran and Kyle Falconer (frontman of Dundee’s The View).
Other act joining the line-up include; ‘BBC Music Sound Of 2016 nominee’ Billie Marten; The Kinaris Quintet; Rhythm n Reel; Highland singer-songwriter James Mackenzie; The Dangleberries; Esperenza and Scottish disco pop band The Roov who provided the soundtrack to the Belladrum 2019 after-movie. (See below)
Tickets
Tickets for the 2020 festival sold out for the 12th consecutive year in a record breaking 72 hours.
A final 1,000 tickets have been held back until after the first line-up announcement and these tickets will be put on sale on Monday 6th January at 10am along with any returns via Skiddle’s RE:SELL initiative and all tickets will be available from Skiddle.
Featured image – Primal Scream (Belladrum 2018) © Al D0nnelly