MO PREECE – Jointly in charge of collecting money. I’m like a kid in a sweet- shop during the festival! There’s so much to hear and experience and I love looking through the programme to choose. There aren’t many places in Britain where you can experi- ence a free three-day music festival with such a vast amount of talent. I really like the informal atmosphere and the buzz it generates around the town. I joined the committee last September and pretty much straight away got the role of organis- ing collecting with Sally Walley. We have a database of people who have collected in the past or who have shown an interest. Then we contact everyone and organise a rota for the three days - making sure there are always people shaking buckets at big venues and walking through the streets. It’s so important that people donate money. The festival can only continue if we all support it. If you want to help collect we would be thrilled – just go to the festival website.
HARBOTTLE & JONAS – A Totnes duo This will be our third consecutive year at the festival. We see familiar faces and make new friends each time. We play a mixture of traditional English folk, pop, indie and roots music. All of our songs carry a story and a large part of our set includes giving the audience some context and an insight into the characters and stories in the songs. After our per- formance we like to enjoy a good beer (usually in the sunshine) and track down some good live music and conversation. For years we played separately in various bands in Liverpool and started playing together when we moved down to Devon at the same time. We are a well-travelled duo. Last year we drove down to Ferrara in Northern Italy to take part in their annual Busking Festival. We always busk and play gigs along the way which helps make it finan- cially viable. Later on this year we’ve tours booked in Northumberland, Sussex, Surrey and Scotland. Our trademark song is ‘The Saucy Sailor Boy’. This tends to get ev- eryone pretty excited at gigs! Do come and track us down during the weekend and say hello...we are very friendly.
