It is with tremendous pleasure we announce that BLACK WATER COUNTY are returning to Farmer Phil’s Festival in 2024 with their high-octane brand of Irish folk-tinged ska punk rock.
Now spanning almost a whole decade together, Black Water County began to deviate from the well-trodden path of teenage insolence (and a lot of booze) to a vigilant state of introversion; hoping to gleam empathy and affinity through stories of the downtrodden and heartbroken.. With a necessary touch of spirit and spirits.
In 2017 they independently released their first album ‘Taking Chances’ and embarked on their first UK tour before signing with booking agent Midnight Mango the following year. The two following years saw three national headline tours with an ever-increasing amount of venues selling out at each new stage as well as several elevating support slots across the UK and genres spanning from modern mesmeric folk to classic, left-field ska punk.
The band’s second album ‘Comedies and Tragedies’ was released in March of 2020 with a second sold-out show at The Old Firestation in Bournemouth (the first one in 2019). However, the plug on the promotional album tour was sadly pulled just three days later when the global pandemic hit England.
If ‘Taking Chances’, is a post-university tale of being in your early twenties; rebelling against anything that stands in the way of a good time, then consider ‘Comedies and Tragedies’ to be a reality check sequel; rife with uncertainty and the struggles of self-identity.
In both 2016 and 2018, Black Water County won their place on Fireball’s ‘Fuelling the Fire Tour’ supporting Less Than Jake, Flogging Molly, The Bronx and The Skints amongst others. They subsequently featured in Kerrang!’s online coverage of the tour, had an endorsement from Fireball UK and also appeared on BBC radio Solent with the single ‘Rise and Fall’.
The bands’ UK festival appearances have included WOMAD, Boomtown Fair, Beautiful Days, Belladrum, Black Deer, Tunes in the Dunes, Camp Bestival, Larmer Tree and Teddy Rocks along with hundreds of smaller UK festivals and festival slots across Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, The Netherlands and France.
After venue doors were finally back open, the band besieged their way back out into the world with an eagerly awaited, first-ever headline show at the O2 Academy Bournemouth in March 2022, a rare unsigned event for the historical venue. With a reprieve of the cancelled album tour in mind, the Spring of 2022 saw another sell out UK tour in addition to an even bigger Autumn 2022 UK tour announcement.