UP and coming Northwich band Delights have been making plenty of noise in the north west music scene this year and this continued with their ‘packed out’ set at Kendal Calling festival.
The band made their debut at the festival on the Bands FC stage and guitarist Ben Squires and bassist Ben Kirkland were shocked at the number of people watching their set.
The guitarist said: “We weren’t expecting that many people to show up at our set but we got on stage and the tent was packed out.
Delights’ set clashed with some big names including Mercury Prize nominee Slowthai but that didn’t stop the crowds from gathering in the tent to catch a glimpse of this exciting band.
“The main reason we didn’t expect too many people to show up was because we clashed with Slowthai, Idles and Manic Street Preachers.
“We had one guy telling us that he missed Manic Street Preachers to watch us so we were made up to hear that.”
The band’s set was well-received by crowds as well with a number of people there singing along to the songs and one person pointing to them as a highlight of the festival.
Ben added: “We saw a few people in our t-shirts singing to the songs and that really did mean a lot especially considering how far away from home we were.
“We got tagged in a tweet and the person basically said that we were the highlight of the festival along with Nile Rodgers so to be included with a name like that is quite special.”
Bassist Ben Kirkland said: “We saw someone in one of our shirts and started speaking to him and he was a fan from Wigan. It was just great to be able to connect with fans during the festival.”
Kendall Calling marked the first major festival that the band has played and they noticed an immediate difference with the layout and experience of the weekend.
Guitarist Ben Squires said: “Before our set we got picked up in a tour bus, driven to the main stage and from the main stage a golf buggy picked us up and drove us to our stage.
“It was amazing the bus had a PS3 in there so we spent some time just playing FIFA in there.”
Not all went perfectly though as 30 minutes before the band were due to go on stage, they realised that they didn’t have their bass guitar.
Ben said: “Our bassist is left-handed which made things more difficult but when we were on the buggy, we realised we didn’t have it and we assumed it had been left in Knutsford.
“We sent messages to every single band that we knew at the festival asking if we could borrow a bass, even a right-handed one.
“The Smiths tribute band offered to lend us one but then we remembered that the Dirty Laces have a left-handed bassist as well. We’ve actually played with them in Witton before.
“We must have sent messages to every social media page that they had before they got back to us saying that we could borrow it so we really would like to thank them for that.”
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