Band's 'dream' playing on Y Not Festival main stage

An indie band from Derbyshire said they found out they had made the shortlist to play on the main stage of a major festival via Instagram.

The Last Orders, who have been playing in pubs and small venues since they formed, said it was a "dream" to be asked to play in front of 20,000 revellers at Y Not Festival at Pikehall near Matlock, Derbyshire.

The band said the experience was "amazing" and that they had "Sunday dinner with Rizzle Kicks" and had a good chat with Dizzee Rascal backstage.

Bass player Morgan Freeman said: "It was mental, there were loads of people I recognised, but I'm also a lot happier that there were loads of people that I didn't recognise. It was great."

The band consists of Ethan Hill, as lead singer and rhythm guitar, Orlando Parkins on lead guitar and backing vocals, Morgan Freeman on bass and Seb Murden on drums and backing vocals.

Hill said the band were ecstatic when they found out they made the shortlist.

"We thought we hadn't made it into the festival and I got a text from someone to check Instagram.

"We'd been picked for the shortlist and we were in band practice and we went mental shouting and screaming.

"I was like 'guys we've got to push this so far' and we made a million social media posts. I sent it to literally every person we know and we managed to get [the slot]."

The band said the experience was nothing like they had ever done before.

"It's a very big stage," Hill said.

"The on-stage sound was really weird, we don't wear in-ear monitors or anything.

"We've been playing in pubs and stuff and then we were on at the main stage, I couldn't hear my guitar, couldn't hear my singing.

"None of us really know how well we did until we were watching videos back and we were like, 'oh, actually we sounded all right'."

The band are growing in popularity and had fans climbing on top of the smoking area of The Bless pub in Derby city centre the weekend before, Hill added.

Speaking about their experience backstage, the band said they had the best time mingling with other artists.

Hill said: "We met people like Dizzee Rascal, people from the Royston Club, we ate a Sunday dinner with the Rizzle Kicks.

"We just sat with them having a Sunday roast and now we're back doing our day jobs, it's been crazy."

Freeman added: "We always said if we do Y Not main stage then we'd be happy but we've now done that.

"For people like us from around here, there's not much of a bigger stage really to do."

The band said the plan was "to do more shows" and then head back to the studio to record more music.

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