Colston Hall hosts fourth Lau-Land offering

Curated single-venue, multi-artist music events are proving quite a hit these days – a quality alternative for people who want to go to festivals but really don’t want to camp. 

With All Tomorrow’s Parties inviting the likes of Portishead and The Simpsons creator Matt Groening to hand pick a lineup of musicians at seaside holiday camps; with the recent National Trust New Art event at Tyntesfield Victorian mansion house, where Patrick Wolf was joined by some of his peers (read our review here) and now with Lau-Land which sees folk trio Lau curate a three-day  festival at Colston Hall featuring some very special guests, including Sun Kil Moon and Tinariwen.

Lau, made up of Martin Green, Kris Drever and Aidan O’Rourke, first launched their Lau-Land event in London in 2012 (around the same time Aidan was writing a piece for the London 2012 Olympics). It has since been replicated in Newcastle and Edinburgh and now it’s the turn of Bristol.

“When planning the festivals we chose cities which we’ve most enjoyed playing in and where the best audiences are,” said Aidan. “Bristol audiences have always been totally up for a night out and that helps!

“A theme through all the Lau-Lands has been cross-genre collaboration and Bristol is a prime example of a city that thrives in this way. Also we partner up with venues in the cities and we have a lot of respect the good people at Colston Hall so Bristol was an obvious choice for our fourth Lau-Land.”

The event, on May 29-31, will see musicians from across the world assemble for live performances and workshops with a distinctive folk flavour. There will also be an interactive activity involving whisky and an emerging music stage featuring artists selected from a public call out via Lau’s newsletter and social media. Artists such as 4th Project, Kate Young, Cardboard Fox and Dan Whitehouse.

Asked about the differences between Americana and folk, Aidan said: “I think Americana is much more song driven than UK folk. Though there are totally great tune players out there too, like Rayna Gellert who’s opening for local band Spiro on the Sunday night. Genre labelling can be quite confusing at times though I know it’s kinda necessary. ‘Folk’ now covers such a wide range of music.

“The wonderful Sun Kil Moon who’s in the main hall Sunday night is classed as folk rock in America but over here I think we’d label it slightly differently. We like the quote from Louis Armstrong ““All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song.”

Wise words from the late, great Louis Armstrong there. So, where next for Lau-Land?

Aidan said: “We’ve spoken about a Lau-Land Tokyo, again because we love playing there and have a good audience. We like the idea that Lau-Land isn’t fixed in time or space and that we don’t have to do one every six months. That’s quite relaxing.”

He added: “To be honest all the cities have been great so far and we’ve been welcomed with open arms. I’m sure it’ll be the same in Bristol.”

You can read our full-length interview with Aidan, here.

Lau-Land takes place at Colston Hall from May 29-31. More information at www.colstonhall.org