Southern Fried Festival 2017

Horsecross Arts has declared its tenth Southern Fried Festival a rocking success following a spectacular weekend of American roots music in Perth.

Music lovers and performers from Scotland to the States and many places in between flocked to the Fair City for a feast of fine tunes, friendship and famous Southern Fried soul food at the specially extended festival from Thursday 27^th to Sunday 30^th July.

Festival-goers enjoyed main stage gigs from Nick Lowe, Jim Lauderdale, Loudon Wainwright III, Beth Nielsen Chapman and two unique Southern Fried tributes Rock ‘n’ Roll Music: The Songs of Chuck Berry and North Star: Scotland sings Canada featuring impressive musical line-ups. There was a host of gigs across the city including Late and Southern Fried in the Salutation Hotel, Angaleena Presley, Rab Noakes, Rachel Harrington and more. The free Outdoor and Acoustic stages and Perth Concert Hall proved a magnet to passing traffic, creating a buzz in and around the venue throughout the weekend.   

Gwilym Gibbons, chief executive of Horsecross Arts, the creative organisation behind Perth Concert Hall and Perth Theatre, said:

“What a weekend! Every year we raise the Southern Fried bar higher! Every year we exceed our expectations. We’ve seen increasing audience numbers, been attracting consistently excellent musicians, welcomed festival attenders from even further afield, gained fantastic feedback, extended our media coverage and shared the Southern Fried love far beyond our city!

“From the monumental effort put in by our staff – who work day and night to deliver this well-organised event – to the great support from local businesses and venues, anyone who bought a ticket, sampled our soul food or rocked out at our free stages, Southern Fried is something we can all be proud of. It is a stunning showcase for Perth. Rock ‘n’ roll on next year!”

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These pictures were taken by Marc Marnie who was at Southern Fried Festival last weekend.