SCOUTING FOR GIRLS, TURIN BRAKES, REEF, and THE SELECTER will all be heading to West Somerset and Watchet Festival to play the main stage this August Bank Holiday weekend, joining a bill that already includes former Spice Girl MELANIE C, Britpop legends CAST, 80’s superstar HAZEL O’CONNOR and many more!

Returning after a fallow year, following their completely sold-out 10th Anniversary in 2016, Watchet Festival is a not-for-profit family friendly event with amazing views of the West Somerset coastline and beyond. Three live stages host more than 60 live acts, bringing a wide range of high-calibre performers not normally found performing in West Somerset, at a very affordable price. 

SCOUTING FOR GIRLS have sold over 2,000,000 records, and have been nominated for four Brit Awards and an Ivor Novello. Their self-titled debut album hit #1 on the UK charts, spawned the iconic singles ‘She So Lovely’ and ‘Elvis Aint Dead’, and has gone on to sell in excess of 1 million copies. Their #1 smash hit single “This Ain’t a Love Song” preceded the release of their second album ‘Everybody Wants to Be on TV’, which peaked at #2.  Since then they have released two more hit albums, and continue to tour extensively around the UK and overseas. 

THE SELECTER are the riotous skank machine who exploded out of Coventry in the game-changing, multicultural 2 Tone explosion of 1979. Now reunited around the nucleus of original members Pauline Black and Arthur ‘Gaps’ Hendrickson, The Selecter are once again firing on all righteous cylinders. They will be performing tracks from recently released album ‘Daylight’, along with their huge back catalogue of hits including ‘Too Much Pressure’, ‘On My Radio’ and ‘Missing Words’. 

As one of Somerset’s best known musical exports, REEF need little introduction to the Watchet Festival audience! Whilst the iconic anthem ‘Place Your Hands’ is unquestionably their best-loved track, in a career stretching 23 years they have scored nine Top 40 hit singles across 5 hit studio albums, including such classics as ‘Naked’, ‘Come Back Brighter’ and ‘Yer Old’. 

After 17 years together, seven studio albums and over a million records sold worldwide, TURIN BRAKES might be excused a bit of downtime. But no, the London 4-piece have just released their eighth studio album ‘Invisible Storm’. 2016 saw them enjoy a huge resurgence, with three singles from their critically acclaimed album ‘Lost Property’ receiving national radio playlisting. 

MELANIE JAYNE CHISHOLM, aka MELANIE C is one of the most successful British recording artists of all time. In addition to achieving worldwide fame and selling over 100 million albums as a member of the Spice Girls, as a solo artist Melanie has released seven solo albums, notching up over 10 million sales worldwide, alongside two UK Number 1 singles and six top 10 ‘s. Her debut album Northern Star sold 4 million copies worldwide and went triple platinum in the UK, and she is the only female performer to top the UK charts as a solo artist, as part of a duo, quartet and quintet.

CAST are undeniably deserving of the moniker ‘Britpop Legends’, and their debut album All Change is widely regarded as one of the classic Britpop albums. Released in October 1995, it become the fastest selling debut album in the history of Polydor, going ‘double platinum’. Cast’s second album Mother Nature Calls went platinum and stayed in the Top 40 for over 6 months. 

Headlining the Udder stage at Watchet Festival on Saturday is renowned singer-songwriter and actress HAZEL O’CONNOR. With a career spanning more than 30 years, she became famous in the 1980s with hit singles “Eighth Day”, “D-Days” and “Will You”, as well as starring in the film Breaking Glass. 

After fifteen albums and two decades on the music scene, ASWAD remains one of Britain’s best-loved reggae bands. The duo of Drummie Zeb and Tony Gadd are renowned among reggae fans for their adventurous fusion of musical styles such as dancehall, funk, hip-hop and dub. Their 1994 album Rise & Shine earned them a Grammy nomination for ‘Reggae Album of the Year’, and also gave the band a No.1 hit with now famous summer reggae anthem ‘Shine.’ 

THE DUB PISTOLS return to Watchet Festival by popular demand, after their triumphant performance back in 2014. Led by indefatigable south-Londoner Barry Ashworth, they have lived every rock ’n’ roll cliché more vividly, knowingly and hilariously than almost any other British band. Yet in 2018 they are busier than ever, having reinvented themselves as the ultimate Festival band. 

Watchet Festival are also very proud to have booked FROM THE JAM, as the organisers have received more requests for them than any other band! Fronted by the legendary Bruce Foxton, they will bring their unique punk / mod sound to the main stage on Friday, performing hits such as ‘That’s Entertainment’, ‘Going Underground’ and ‘Town Called Malice’.