It’s Kendal Calling’s 20th birthday year and while it’s a special one for many – it’s extra special for one band, who are having a full circle moment.
Pomona, a Manchester based new wave indie band, will be playing the Woodlands Stage on Friday August 1, marking their first ever festival gig.
But for their guitarist, Jake Andersonbell, of Cliburn, near Penrith, it’s also a childhood dream come true.
Jake grew up only three miles from the festival site and said his early and teenage memories of the festival helped shaped his interest in music.
He said: “I grew up in a rural area with not many opportunities to see local bands or touring musicians. There is spots in Carlisle, but Kendal Calling was a really big deal for me.
“I remember talking to people about it when I was too young to go and hearing the bass echo across the surrounding fields.
“At 16 I jumped at the chance of going and that was my first big exposure to music.”
Jake went to the festival regularly as a teen and said it was seeing bands like Feeder and Chase and Status at the festival that lit a fire within him musically.
Now, years later, Jake has come a full-circle and will be playing the festival with his band.
He said: “Going to the festival it always felt like a dream to play one of those stages and now to actually go back with our band and play there just feels like something has been completed.
“We applied to play thinking it would be a great place to perform, but we found out the other week we would be doing it. We were down in Brighton and we were having pizza after a really long drive and we got the email.
“We were absolutely ecstatic, it was such a great feeling, it’s the first festival we’ve played and and we’re really really chuffed. It’ll be the biggest stage we’ve performed on and it’ll be really nice to have that space!”
Jake, who now lives in Manchester, first joined Pomona a few months into it forming, after seeing a poster advertising for a new band member in the city’s Northern Quarter.
Alongside playing guitar, Jake also helps with song writing and backing vocals. He is joined by Liam Gamston, also on guitar, Joe Boxall, lead singer, James Lyons, on drums, and Harry Hart, on bass.
The quintet have since been performing for the past 18 months and have already featured on BBC Introducing East Midlands with their latest single ‘Double Yellows’.
Jake said: “It’s the most motivated band I’ve been in. We’ve been trying to find our sound for a good year at least and we love being a bit more experimental and bringing a bit of ambience, but also making our stuff energetic and upbeat, we want people dancing.
“Just something that creates an interesting show, at the end of the day that’s what we’re striving for.”
Jake first learnt to play guitar at 13 years old and played in bands as a teenager at school in Penrith.
He added that he also gained huge motivation to perform and write music from the Penrith based BlueJam Arts CIC – where he attended a music-focused youth group.
He has since played with different bands from across the country for the past seven years but he said playing Kendal Calling will be a firm highlight.
He added: “It’s a beautiful festival, in such a beautiful setting, I don’t think there’s any other festival I’ve been to that really quite matches it.”
Pomona will play Kendal Calling’s Woodlands Stage on Friday August 1 at 2pm.
They are also releasing a new single ‘Petrichor’ on July 25.
Kendal Calling is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year – have you got a special story or love for the festival? We’d love to hear all about it at [email protected]
