The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Festival fave: Be Charlotte
Slessor Gardens, Dundee, September 14-15
Charlotte Brimner is no stranger to playing in front of huge festival crowds.
In recent years, the singer-songwriter – who performs as Be Charlotte – has played at big events including Edinburgh’s Hogmanay, TRNSMT Festival in Glasgow and the short-lived Carnival Fifty-Six in Dundee’s Camperdown Park.
But as the now Glasgow-based 21-year-old, who grew up in Angus, looked ahead to being on the bill for this weekend’s 3D Festival – which has been organised to celebrate the opening of the £80.1 million V&A Dundee – she admitted that while being part of the event was “incredible”, she was naturally feeling a little nervous.
“I’m so honoured firstly,” the former Morgan Academy pupil said. “Obviously we’ve known that the V&A was going to be opening for quite some time. But when I was asked to be involved in the opening ceremony I couldn’t really believe it for a while. I just thought ‘that’s insane’. It’s great. It’s just such an exciting time for the city.
“I feel mostly excited and obviously a wee bit nervous because it’s a bit of pressure. But I think it’s good pressure and it’s going to be a great weekend. I’m really looking forward to it.”
Charlotte said she was “honoured” to be on the same sold-out bill tonight as indie rock legends Primal Scream and BBC Radio 1 Brit List artist Lewis Capaldi.
She’s also playing at the non-ticketed event tomorrow afternoon sandwiched between The View frontman and fellow Dundonian Kyle Falconer and former Danny Wilson frontman Gary Clark.
Having been signed to record label Columbia/Sony Music last year, Charlotte has been spending a lot of time recently in Germany and London writing new material “non-stop” – and will showcase some of this to the 20,000 Dundee crowd. But she still finds it “totally surreal” to be on the same record label as the likes of Beyonce and Adele and is looking forward to releasing some songs on the label soon.
“When I started writing and playing songs I was still at Morgan – still at school,” said Charlotte, who left school at 17 to ‘see how the music went’.
“I just did it because I liked it obviously. I never did it because I was chasing a record deal. I honestly didn’t know what any of that stuff was a couple of years ago.
“I didn’t know if it would ever come to the point where I could call it a job or allow me to pay my bills. I don’t tend to be too expectant of things because I know it’s an industry that changes so quickly.
“But I think for me now, having just not stopped working on this for the last four or five years really, I’m really excited that everything has led to here.”