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Derby alt rockers Bivouac are reforming to play the Gigantic Indie All Dayer (28 May) this year, their first set in 17 years.

Tell us what you’ve been up to since last summer?
Fixing stuff, breaking stuff, relearning 20 year old songs, laughing and crying, a bit of recording, looking after people young and old, and being taken care of too, smiling mostly, seeing old friends and loving that they are still as fine as you remember. It’s been good on the whole.

How would you describe your sound?
Honest. Artless, without guile, natural. Driven valves and real drums.

You’re set to play Gigantic Festival 2016 – what can we expect?
We have a few new songs which we’re excited about but we’re loving dipping into the early recordings too, mostly last century but all played with love. We rehearse the songs, not the shows, so it’ll be as much of a surprise to us what happens.

Who else are you excited to see at Gigantic?
House of Love (with Bickers they are just phenomenal), Cud, Bentleys always worth their weight. The whole bill will be great – we feel flattered to be asked to play on it.

If you could curate your own festival what would the line-up look like with artists dead or alive?
The Stooges, The Jesus Lizard, Melvins, Thin Lizzy (with Phil), AC\DC (with Bon), Can, early days REM, early days ZZ Top, Nick Drake, Richard Thompson, Ivor Cutler, The Fall, Flaco Jimenez, Shostakovich… This list is as endless as it is futile – Dead or Alive would not be on it though.

What’s your best festival memory?
Emerging from a tent at Glasto about 1980, sun was shining, hell’s own hitchhike was behind us and we’d got there. People wandering about selling “cookies”, Michael Eavis wandering around making sure everyone was OK. It wasn’t quite as big in those days.

What’s in your festival survival kit?
A pass. Failing that, bog roll, a tent you don’t mind being destroyed, all weekend clothes and a change of clothes to travel home in – nothing worse than blood, mud and puke to cause a stink on the National Express. A phone that can still call your parents after three days – they will be the only ones who will accept the blood, mud and puke on their child and come and get you if you didn’t bring a change.

Antonia Charlesworth

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