Colne, Lancashire | August Bank Holiday 2026

Get the guitars tuned, polish the dancing shoes and prepare for enough bluesy goodness to make your pint start tapping its own foot. 🍺🎸

The Great British Rhythm & Blues Festival is heading back to Colne, Lancashire, for the August Bank Holiday 2026, bringing another absolutely stacked celebration of blues, rhythm & blues, roots, rock ’n’ roll and everything gloriously groovy in between.

And when we say stacked, we mean STACKED, mun.

The newly revealed bill features dozens of artists, including international blues heavyweight Walter Trout, alongside Danny Bryant, Dom Martin & Band, Ray Beadle, Mike Sanchez & His Band, Kyla Brox Band, The Achievers, Atomic Rooster and a frankly ridiculous amount more.

If you like guitars that howl, Hammond organs that growl and musicians who can make twelve bars of blues sound like the end of the bloody world, Colne might be the place to spend your Bank Holiday.

🔥 WALTER TROUT LEADS A HUGE 2026 BILL

Sitting proudly towards the top of the announcement is the mighty Walter Trout.

A genuine giant of modern blues guitar, Trout has spent decades tearing stages apart with fiery playing, enormous solos and performances dripping with emotion.

For blues fans, seeing his name on the Colne poster immediately gives this year’s festival some serious weight.

But Walter Trout is only the beginning.

Danny Bryant is also heading to Lancashire, bringing the sort of guitar playing capable of making grown blues fans stare at their own instruments when they get home and quietly consider selling them.

Then there’s Dom Martin & Band, another act perfectly suited to a festival built around musicianship, storytelling and proper live performance.

Throw Ray Beadle into the mix and suddenly we’ve got ourselves one hell of a blues guitar gathering.

🎹 MIKE SANCHEZ IS BRINGING THE ROCK ’N’ ROLL

Things aren’t staying strictly inside the blues box either.

Mike Sanchez & His Band are on the bill, which means expect some serious rhythm & blues, boogie-woogie and rock ’n’ roll energy.

Sanchez is the sort of performer who can transform a respectable blues gathering into something resembling a sweaty 1950s dance hall after somebody accidentally poured Red Bull into the piano.

And we’re absolutely here for it. 😂🔥

Also appearing are Lightnin’ Willie & The Poor Boys, while the brilliant Kyla Brox Band adds another huge dose of British blues talent to proceedings.

🎸 THE GREAT BRITISH RHYTHM & BLUES FESTIVAL 2026 LINE-UP

The poster is absolutely rammed, so grab a cuppa — or something stronger — because there’s a lot to get through.

Artists announced include:

  • Walter Trout
  • Danny Bryant
  • Dom Martin & Band
  • Ray Beadle
  • Mike Sanchez & His Band
  • Lightnin’ Willie & The Poor Boys
  • Kyla Brox Band
  • Michael Messer & Chaz Jankel’s Dance of Life
  • King Pleasure & The Biscuit Boys
  • Sonny Flint’s Beano Bluesbreakers
  • Sean Taylor Trio
  • The Delta Aces
  • Kevin Brown
  • The Achievers
  • Atomic Rooster
  • Will Wilde
  • Mississippi MacDonald
  • Thomas Heppell
  • Chloe Josephine
  • Susan Santos
  • Bison Hip
  • The Mel Outsider Reformation
  • Sloetrain Blues Band
  • Katie & The Bad Sign
  • Jack-Austin Despy Blues Band
  • Kirris Riviere & The Delta Du Bruit
  • John Carroll & The Blues Revelation
  • Katie B. & The Snooks
  • Ashley Sherlock Band
  • The Pat Fulgoni Blues Experience
  • David Julia Band
  • Backbone Blues Band
  • Paul Benjaman Band
  • Will Tang Clan
  • Dr Brown & The Groovecats
  • J-Bear & The Giants
  • Steely Don
  • A Tribute to Rod Mayall
  • Nik Live
  • Abi Budgen
  • Celebrating Eva
  • Dave Ferra
  • Elsie Franklin & Roni Reeds
  • Fran McGillivray & Mike Burke
  • Greg Brice Duo
  • John W. Doyle
  • Pete Greenwood
  • Raphael Callaghan
  • Ross Munro
  • Tadhg Bean-Bradley

And breathe. 😮‍💨🎸

That’s less of a festival line-up and more like somebody accidentally emptied an entire blues record collection onto Lancashire.

⚡ ATOMIC ROOSTER?!

One particularly tasty name hiding amongst the line-up is Atomic Rooster.

Now we’re wandering straight into territory that’ll prick up the ears of classic rock and prog fans as well as the blues faithful.

The legendary name stretches all the way back to the late 1960s and early ‘70s British progressive and hard rock scene, making their appearance another reason this festival should be on the radar of rock fans who wouldn’t necessarily describe themselves as blues obsessives.

Because that’s one of the beautiful things about blues.

Follow the family tree for long enough and you eventually bump into practically everything we bang on about here at The Riff Report.

Hard rock?

Blues.

Heavy metal?

Blues.

Classic rock?

Loads of blues.

Rock ’n’ roll?

You guessed it.

The riffs have ancestors, butt. 🤘

🎷 MORE THAN JUST A FESTIVAL

The Great British Rhythm & Blues Festival has become part of the identity of Colne, transforming the Lancashire town into a buzzing hub of live music over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Rather than everything happening behind the walls of one enormous festival arena, the event has traditionally embraced the town itself, creating the feeling of a proper musical takeover.

That’s what gives events like this their personality.

You wander through town and there’s music.

You nip somewhere for a drink and there’s music.

You find another venue and — yep — more bloody music.

Before long you’ve completely forgotten what time it is and you’re watching somebody unleash a slide-guitar solo while holding a pint you don’t remember buying.

That’s a Bank Holiday properly spent. 🍺😂

🎸 A FESTIVAL FOR PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY LOVE LIVE MUSIC

There’s something refreshingly straightforward about a festival like this.

The focus is the musicians.

No enormous gimmicks required.

No need for a 60-foot inflatable demon firing lasers out of its backside.

Although, to be fair, we’d definitely watch that.

Instead, the attraction is players walking onto stages, plugging in guitars and letting the songs do the talking.

Blues is particularly powerful in a live environment because it’s never supposed to feel clinically perfect.

It’s bends.

It’s vibrato.

It’s improvisation.

It’s musicians reacting to each other.

It’s that moment when somebody hits THE NOTE and half the room instinctively pulls the same face.

You know the one.

😩🎸

The universal guitar-solo face.

🔥 WHY ROCK FANS SHOULD PAY ATTENTION

If your usual festival diet consists of hard rock, metal or classic rock, don’t make the mistake of thinking a blues festival isn’t for you.

The blues is practically written into the DNA of rock music.

Without blues pioneers there’d be no Led Zeppelin as we know them.

No early Fleetwood Mac.

No Cream.

No Free.

No Rolling Stones in the form that changed British music.

And generations of guitar heroes wouldn’t have developed the same vocabulary that eventually fed directly into hard rock and heavy metal.

So consider a weekend like this a chance to head closer to the source.

And judging by the 2026 line-up, there should still be plenty of moments where amplifiers get cranked and guitars get thoroughly abused.

Exactly how we like it. 🤘

🏴 AUGUST BANK HOLIDAY IN COLNE

There’s also something brilliantly British about spending an August Bank Holiday travelling around venues watching blues bands.

Will it be sunny?

Maybe.

Will it rain sideways at some point?

Almost certainly.

Will somebody confidently say, “It’s brightening up over there” while pointing directly towards an enormous black cloud?

Of course.

This is Britain. 🇬🇧😂

But whatever the Lancashire weather decides to throw at proceedings, Colne should be absolutely buzzing once the amps fire up.

🎟️ GREAT BRITISH RHYTHM & BLUES FESTIVAL 2026

📍 Location: Colne, Lancashire
📅 When: August Bank Holiday 2026
🎸 Music: Blues, rhythm & blues, roots, rock ’n’ roll and more
🔥 Headlining name: Walter Trout
🎶 Featuring: Danny Bryant, Dom Martin & Band, Ray Beadle, Mike Sanchez & His Band, Kyla Brox Band, Atomic Rooster and dozens more

With a bill this enormous, festival-goers are going to need a serious plan if they want to catch everything.

Or you could follow the traditional festival strategy:

Pick three must-see bands, immediately abandon the schedule and somehow discover your favourite act of the entire weekend by accident.

Works every time. 😂

🤘 THE RIFF REPORT VERDICT

The Great British Rhythm & Blues Festival 2026 is shaping up to be an absolute belter.

Walter Trout alone would make plenty of blues fans consider the trip, but once you start digging through the rest of this monster line-up, the sheer depth becomes obvious.

You’ve got established names.

You’ve got rising talent.

You’ve got blues-rock.

You’ve got rhythm & blues.

You’ve got rock ’n’ roll.

You’ve got prog history courtesy of Atomic Rooster.

And you’ve got enough guitar solos to keep the population of Colne permanently pulling that aforementioned solo face for the entire Bank Holiday.

Lovely stuff. 🎸🔥

So dust off the boots, prepare the festival timetable and maybe start practising your pint-carrying technique.

Colne is getting the blues — and that’s very much a good thing.

From everyone here at The Riff Report:

Turn it up. Support live music. Support the blues. And we’ll see you down the front, butt. 🤘🔥🎷

Proudly Welsh. Proudly Loud. 🐉🎸

#TheGreatBritishRhythmAndBluesFestival #ColneBlues #WalterTrout #BluesRock #TheRiffReport