Solstice to celebrate launch of new album Light Up with all-day live event

UK prog rockers Solstice have lined-up an all day event to celebrate the launch of the band's upcoming new album Light Up on November 6.

The all-day Light Up Festival will be a charity fundraiser in aid of the Willen Hospice, which offers end-of-iife palliative care. It will take pace at the MKII venue in Milton Keynes from 12pm to 9pm on November 6.

Solstice will be joined on the day by The Blackheart Orchestra, Ebony Buckle and a Q&A session hosted by Prog Magazine writer Martin Kielty. Kielty will also perform poetry in his Boozer Cruiser alter-ego, while Solstice drummer Peter Helmsley will deliver a solo performance and garden jazz band Composting will open the nine-hour event.

“Sia was the turning point for Solstice,” says leader and co-founder Andy Glass of the band's 2020 album. “Jess Holland walked into the studio and produced the key to unlock the potential I always knew was there. After 40 years the moment arrived – I saw what could be, and the value in every single year that led to that point.”

The production of Light Up has been fully funded by a crowdfunding campaign that hit its target days after launch. Glass reports: “With Light Up, there was no plan other than to harness the self-belief that’s grown with the success of Sia and the shows that followed. Sia has taken us from a band playing a few gigs a year to a summer packed with festivals, the opportunity to work and just be, with a group of people I love . There’s a groundswell of joyous energy in and around the band and my hope is that Light Up will only help that feeling grow.”

Tickets are on sale now, priced £33.25 for the event. Pre-order details for Light Up will be announced shortly.

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Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.