A new dance stage is making its first appearance at the sold-out Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival (5th & 6th August) this year – the Fat Sam’s Presents ‘Jock The Reaper Stage’ – which features an old combine harvester turned into a dance stage. What was once a steady old yellow New Holland combine harvester has morphed into a matt black bad-ass Celtic electro fusion dance platform. 

“It’s kind of Mad Max in a tartan bunnet meets the Wurzels in Ibiza,” says promoter Joe Gibbs. “As farmers we’re always being urged to diversify. Well here’s some diversification – with attitude! I’ve always admired the prehistoric dinosaur age look of combines and it occurred to me a while back that this could be put to some entertainment purpose when a harvester reached the end of its working life as an implement. ”

Artists slated for the stage by booker Steve Robertson include: Filth DJs; Sketch Live; Niteworks DJs; We See Aliens; Phono DJs; Organised Noise; Fridge Magnets; Graeme Platt; Default & Picasso; M Stell; Mykol Blyth; Mark Mackenzie; Count Clockwork Audiolife DJs; Grouse Beater Sound System; The LED; Niteworks Live; Bullwhack; Master Shake; Metal Tech; Becki Bardot; Highland Junglists; The Boomshank Redemption; Neil Ferguson; Alan Grant; and Connor Bryne

The modifications have been undertaken by John MacLean from Beauly with electrical work and sound and lighting from MediaPro in Inverness. Fat Sam’s who have sponsored the stage is a well-known music venue in Dundee. Fridge Magnets and Meta Tech appear courtesy of Sonicbids (www.sonicbids.com), the web site which helps bands and promoters book gigs. 

Twin Scots rock legends Texas and Deacon Blue are to headline the eighth staging of Belladrum Festival. Also announced for the event are: The Phantom Band; We Were Promised Jetpacks; The Sound Of Guns; Natahniel Rateliff; Polarsets; Guillemots; Kassidy; Echo & The Bunnymen; Frank Turner; Newton Faulkner; Ed Sheeran; Anna Calvi; Admiral Fallow; Easy Star All Stars; Eli ‘Paeprboy’ Reed; Teddy Thomson ; Little Comets; Dry The River; MC Xander; Young Rebel Set; Roddy Woomble; 3 Daft Monkeys; Roddy Hart & The Lonesome Fire; Emile Sande; Ben Howard; The Amphetameanies; Lucy Rose; Wooden Box With A Fistful Of Fivers; The Dangleberries; The Staves; The Webb Sisters; Rachel Sermanni; CW Stoneking and His Primitive Horn Orchestra; The Xcerts; Skerryvore; Saint Saviour Benjamin Francis Leftwich; James Mackenzie & The Aquascene; Cousti; King Charles; Suzette & The Neon Angels; Findlay Napier; Diddums; Torridon; Iain MacLaughlin & The Outsiders; He Slept On 57; Tom Odell; Scooty & The Skyhooks; Stetsonhead; Hoodja; Bronto Skylift; The Raghu Dixit Project; The Horndog Brass Band and the Rooty MaToot Big Band.

Belladrum 2011 takes place in the beautiful Highland surroundings of Belladrum Estate, near Beauly in Inverness-shire. The independent festival has built a reputation for its eclectic line-ups, its offbeat non-musical entertainments and its all-ages approach. The festival won a VisitScotland Thistle Award in 2009 and is a past winner of the Grassroots Festival Award at the UK Festival Awards, the festival industry’s ‘oscars’.