★★★★
Chichester’s inaugural music festival got off to a rousing start with a headline concert featuring folk music favourite and Mercury Music Prize-nominated Seth Lakeman.
The brainchild of producer Robin Bextor, this boutique music festival has had a modest start, taking up about a quarter of the Priory Park site.
But if the success of the first night is anything to go by, this could become an annual fixture in the Chichester calendar, and perhaps next year Robin – father of Sunday-night headliner Sophie Ellis Bextor – might be able to do more than just call in familial favours to fill the line-up.
Appearing suddenly, 15 minutes ahead of schedule, Seth and his band started with The Courier (from 2014 album Word Of Mouth), startling the picnicking audience to their feet with its violin-led driving rhythms.
The crowd – a blend of dedicated Seth fans calling out declarations of love and curious locals just along for the ride – soon got over the surprise entrance and were swaying, stomping and clapping along with abandon.
By the end of the obligatory foot-stomping violin stormer Kitty Jay, the tent was jumping.
Lakeman’s songbook is populated with characters from the Dorset Moors – highwaymen stand in vivid woods and doomed lovers are parted.
The setlist included old favourites such as Blood Upon Copper, which blended perfectly with new material from his forthcoming album Ballads Of The Broken Few.
For several songs, Lakeman enlisted the help of the willing audience to join in with the chorus, including a gentle singalong to Portrait of My Wife.
A final encore and the happily exhausted crowd walked out into the moonlit streets of a deserted Chichester.
Emily Angus
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