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Dereham Blues Festival 2026 Dereham: Wednesday 1st July / Sunday 5th July 2026 Will Wilde: Harp-led Blues at Dereham Memorial Hall 1st July 2026  Whoah, the summer we have been having has been real Blues country weather!  The unrelenting, enervating heat and hot breezes, have set up the 14th Dereham Blues Festival perfectly. Five straight days and nights of the finest, free, live blues music in the country are on the way in the old market town and it looks like all its hours will be blessed with good weather for wandering from pub to pub to cricket club and the Ellenor Fenn Garden to soak up the free music on offer.  The whole shebang kicked off last night with another stunning opening show at the Dereham Memorial Hall . It was sold out  of course.  The star attraction for the opening night was Will Wilde and his band, who hail from the Brighton.  Will’s specialism is playing the blues harp, the entry level instrument for so many to blues musicians. Whet...

The Big Gig Santiago & The Soulmovers and Mississippi MacDonald Dereham Memorial Hall, Saturday  25 th  May 2024 Santiago & The Soulmovers, Dereham Memorial Hall. (c)CLP   Absolutely chucking it down.  Branches breaking under the combined weight of foliage and very heavy rain.  Perfect for the drive out through flooding, via a phantom road diversion, to Dereham for an evening of blues.   Arriving slightly frazzled by the evening’s journey, I really needed to hear something to relax me, soothe my worried mind and slow me down.  Thankfully, I found it within the comforting confines of Dereham’s picture-book Memorial Hall.   Mississippi MacDonald strolled on stage in a classic black showman’s suit with shiny seams, with mighty fancy lapels, wide as a Concorde delta wing and just as aerodynamic.  He strapped on his Fender CS ’61 as he greeted the audience with a Londoner’s  “Good evening, ladies’n’gennelmen. ...

Free yourself up for The Summer Time Blues Dereham Blues Festival 2024 Wednesday 10th, Thursday 11th, Friday 12th, Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th July, 2024   Dereham   town centre  is  home to one of the UK’s very best music festivals.     Wander freely from FREE gig to FREE gig around the compact old market town.     The music is FREE in the local pubs and clubs (NO muddy fields)! If you've never been to the Dereham Blues Festival, you need to make some space in your diary.  If you have been, you just need to make sure that you do not miss this beefed-up, extra special 10th festival.  It starts on the evening of Wednesday 10 th  July with a ticketed gig and then simply rolls into a four-day weekend of wall-to-wall free blues music. I went last year and it was brilliant!  It is superbly contained  in the tight-knit town and free, apart from a handful of events. All the local pubs and bars support the event and it creates a...