Dream Show – James Walsh

James Walsh is the singer, songwriter and guitarist in multi-million-selling band Starsailor as well as being an acclaimed solo artist. He is a prolific songwriter who has written songs with Eliza Doolittle, Melanie C, Suzanne Vega, and Professor Green – to name a few; as well as writing movie soundtracks. In the past four years has released five albums and four EPS, the most recent being Coming Good, which received rave reviews from national press. 

James will be bringing his tender, soulful vocals and gorgeously crafted songs to The Georgian Theatre on Sunday 11th June. Ahead of that show, he tells us what his dream show would look like…

Inspired by The Verve’s triumphant Haigh Hall show all those years ago my dream show would be in Chorley’s Astley Park.

Astley Park Weekender
The big headliners would be Neil Young (Performing a double bill of After The Goldfish and Harvest), Bruce Springsteen and Joni Mitchell. Below them on the main stage Bon Iver, Sam Fender, Phoebe Bridgers and Feist, with Badly Drawn Boy opening both days.

Away from the main stage Elbow, Turin Brakes, Fleet Foxes, and Anais Mitchell would all be performing.

Aside from music, there’d be a special podcast arena where ’No Such Thing As A Fish’, ’Chatabix’ and ’The News Agents’ would all record their podcasts live. 

I’m a big football fan so in the legends field we’d have Steven Gerrard & Kenny Dalglish telling their stories perhaps along with Eric Cantona and Neville Southall for balance. 

I love chicken so there’d be a huge BBQ serving chicken and ribs etc with the best BBQ chefs flown in from Austin Texas. 

There’d be ample bars serving local Rivington Brewery IPAs and Pale Ales

And a beautiful onsite tearoom sanctuary adorned with plants for the ultimate zone to escape from it all. 

Pre-pitched biodegradable tents for all price ranges would be available at all price ranges to save people the hassle of bringing theirs but they’d be totally environmentally friendly and disposable or could be reused for next year’s event?

Lastly, the world music stage would showcase the talents of refugees who’ve settled and brought their music here over the decades escaping economic strife or war.