Rewind Scotland

Scone Palace, July 20-22

Stars from pop’s past are set to dazzle at Perthshire’s biggest annual music bash.

Since starting in 2011, Rewind Scotland has firmly established itself as a must-see attraction with its roster of 80s legends. Around 30,000 revellers are expected to attend the colourful extravaganza, which is being headlined by OMD and event debutants Status Quo.

This year’s mega-bill also includes Bonnie Tyler, Midge Ure, Gipsy Kings, Roland Gift, Tiffany, Heaven 17, Imagination, A Flock Of Seagulls, Wendy James, UB4O, Boomtown Rats, The Skids and more.

Campers can look forward to a curtain-raiser on the Friday night from reformed Scottish favourites Hipsway at Rewind’s new Forever Stage, which also hosts comedians Reginald D Hunter and Daisy Earle and a deejay set from Spandau Ballet’s Martin Kemp over the weekend. Hipsway frontman Grahame “Skin” Skinner says he was pleasantly surprised his band were asked to get the party started. “I always assumed you had to have X-amount of top 10 hits to play Rewind,” he admits.

“We’ve not had that so I thought they wouldn’t really be that interested in us. But we’ve got songs that people know really well and we’ve sold a lot of albums, so it’s just us who’re doing a set in the big tent and it’ll be great.”

The Glasgow outfit showed they’ve plenty to offer with a memorable turn at Dundee’s Fat Sams last December that included classics like Tinder, Long White Car and a stunning cover of Blue Nile’s Tinseltown In The Rain.

Skin reckons the reaction to their comeback tour bodes well for Rewind. “All the shows sold out, which was brilliant,” he says.

“It’s very gratifying. People seem to think it was good, they enjoyed it. It was a good crowd at Dundee — but it was really cold upstairs, I can tell you! They need to turn the heating on in Fat Sams.

“That was the most shows we’ve done in a row — seven in nine days — so it felt like a proper tour. It’s a different feeling when you go back to a hotel after a show, you feel like you’re in a proper band.”

This’ll be Hipsway’s first Rewind but they’re no strangers to huge concerts having supported Simple Minds at a clutch of stadium shows and toured Europe with Eurythmics during pop’s most colourful decade.

More recently, Skin earned a crust at T In The Park during a spell out of the limelight. “I lived in London for a long time and when I came back to Glasgow I started working backstage,” he says. “I used to go and get all the passes for the crew, like a production runner. I did that about seven or eight times so I’m well aware of the goings-on at festivals.”

www.rewindfestival.com

Picture: Steven Brown. A colourful crowd enjoying last year’s event.