Richard Ashcroft unveiled as Bank Holiday festival's solo performer

Organisers of The Last Days of Summer Festival have officially confirmed that The Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft will make his only solo appearance anywhere in the UK this year at Stowe House Country Estate near Silverstone, Bucks on Bank Holiday Monday, August 25th.
Ashcroft will join a line-up that includes Supergrass, Athlete, Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Black Kids, The Rascals, Young Knives, Royworld and VIP sets from BBC Radio One’s Gilles Peterson and Portishead DJ Andy Smith.
Event organiser Paul Reaney of Toast confirmed: “We can finally reveal that Richard Ashcroft is the secret addition to The Last Days of Summer line-up. At this time, we would also like to confirm that this in no way affects Richard’s relationship with The Verve. The fact that Richard is performing a solo gig on the same day that The Verve release their new album is completely co-incidental, Richard agreed to play The Last Days of Summer toward the end of 2007. He will be allowed to perform some of The Verve’s songs with his band, but this is very much a solo gig”
As the frontman of The Verve, Ashcroft’s summer has already included sets at V and Glastonbury. On his solo plans, Ashcroft recently noted: “I will continue my solo stuff. But it seemed a shame to leave this (The Verve) thing dormant when there is so much talent there."
The Last Days of Summer is the first music festival to be held at Stowe House or within the region. Fellow organiser Ciaran Kennedy noted: “While a lot of festivals go for some of the smaller acts and try to grow, we have gone for quality from the outset. We think in getting Ashcroft to come along and play alongside Supergrass and the rest, we’ve done that. The Black Kids, The Rascals, Young Knives and Royworld are four of the most exciting new bands around while Athlete and Fun Lovin’ Criminals are festival favourites for good reason.”
The Last Days of Summer will also include an ice slide, made from five tonnes of snow by Milton Keynes’ SNO!Zone, a snowboard simulator, funfair, food village, market stalls and bungies.
Tickets for The Last Days of Summer are £39.50 and can be bought at www.seetickets.com or by calling 0871 220 0260. VIP Tickets are available upon request at £99.
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Press Enquiries and accreditation requests to: Paul ReaneyThe Last Days of SummerT 0845 370 1966 M 07912 477 993 E paul@thelastdaysofsummer.comwww.thelastdaysofsummer.com

The Last Days of Summer - Line Up

So, just under two weeks remain until Supergrass, Athlete, Fun Lovin' Criminals, The Rascals, Black Kids, Royworld, Young Knives and a top secret solo performance, the only one in the UK this year, take the stage.

To be honest, it's a lot of hard work putting on a festival. More than a football event, which is where we've cut our teeth here at Toast.

The difficulty lies in the absence of ongoing stories. For our football matches you can dripfeed the names of the players playing as they come in (take a look, if you don't know what I mean www.itv.com/thelegends) but for festivals, you live or die on the names you go to press with at launch - the rest of it is direct marketing. Expensive direct marketing.

Anyways, at least we've still got our big announcement still to make. As soon as he's finished playing at V, I think we're good to go. It's going to be a great chance to turn some heads with just a couple of weeks to go.