Two Fermanagh acts will be joining R&B legends, Sister Sledge this summer at Stendhal as organisers announce a first set of performers for this year’s festival.

Darling of the Irish Country Music scene, Lisa McHugh, has been off the road recently as she welcomed her first baby to the world, but she’ll have her jiving boots polished and ready for action come July at Stendhal.

Lisa McHugh.

Lisa McHugh.

Also featured in the line-up so far is ‘Strange New Places’, a Belfast-based band whose founding members, Ash and Rory Jones, are originally from Fermanagh.

Together with Michael Smith, Caleb Roberts and Rain Watt, they describe themselves as “a band of right-on radicals with low self-esteem, nestled between Folk Punk and Power Pop”.

Strange New Places.

Strange New Places.

Following a successful recovery year in 2021 where the team at Stendhal produced not only the first post-lockdown outdoor music concert in Ireland, but also two reduced capacity festivals, the organisers believe that the announcement of Sister Sledge as one of this year’s headline acts is a great start to their ambition in returning the 2022 event to pre-Covid levels.

With post-Covid in mind, the festival has reverted to its normal one-event format, but has changed from its traditional August dates to earlier in the summer, with the festival taking place on June 30, July 1 and July 2 this year.

Sister Sledge.

Sister Sledge.

Sister Sledge have enjoyed one of the longest and most decorated careers any R&B artist has ever experienced. Number-one singles all over the world, multiplatinum albums and a slew of awards have all come their way thanks to timeless classic songs such as ‘Lost in Music’, ‘He’s the greatest dancer’, ‘Thinking of you’, and of course, one of the most iconic songs ever written, ‘We are family’.

Also announced in the first wave of acts for Stendhal 2022 are Simon Fowler and Oscar Harrison, two of the founding members of Britpop legends, ‘Ocean Colour Scene’, who perform all the classic band hits as an acoustic two-piece, and Rockabilly legends ‘Hayseed Dixie’, the band that invented their own musical genre, ‘Rockgrass’.

As ever, Northern Irish Music is high on the agenda at Stendhal, being the single largest showcase of Northern Irish Music at any event in the country and this summer they welcome some of the very best seasoned and brand-new indigenous acts to the farm.

‘The Wood Burning Savages’, ‘Sasha Samara’, ‘Travi the Native’, ‘Foreign Wolf’, ‘BECAH’, ‘Lemonade Shoelace’, ‘SkiBunny DJs’, ‘Craic Pipe’, ‘Harley & The Wolf’, ‘TRÚ’, ‘Wild Heat’ and ‘NI Soul Troop’ are the first of many to be announced.

For further information on the upcoming festival and the acts, visit www.stendhalfestival.com.