FOR Rebecca Downes who plays the British Stage of the festival on Sunday, August 28, Colne will always be a special place.

“The first time I was fortunate enough to play the festival it was like an epiphany,” said Rebecca who has been nominated for female vocalist of the year in the British Blues Awards.

“The whole town comes alive at festival time. Colne is the biggest rock and blues festival in the UK and people know it’s the one to go to.

“Certainly for us it is the number one. If we get on any festival we want it to be at Colne - it is that renowned.

“As soon as you say to people ‘we’re playing at Colne’ it makes them take you very seriously which is great.”

Rebecca was last seen in East Lancashire in November when she and her band supported King King at the Grand in Clitheroe.

“King King are so well known,” she said, “so when you support someone like that it is quite scary.

“But they were lovely and fantastic to us. Sometimes as a support you can be shoved to one side but they were really nice people.”

This year has been a particularly busy one for Rebecca - her album Believe was released earlier this year to great critical acclaim.

“Believe had quite of lot of airplay on Radio 2 which is brilliant,” she said.

“We’ve also got a live album in progress which should be out late October or early November, so that’s in the pipeline as we speak. There’s always something going on.

“With Believe fans will know it’s us due to the passion and the energy behind it but it’s probably got a slightly harder edge than Back to the Start our first album. But we’re still pretty eclectic and probably always will be.”

Rebecca worked with long-term collaborator Steve Birkett on Believe.

“For us, when we put an album together we write so much it’s trying to whittle down the songs that we think will work.

“I think we’ve got at least another 20 songs as we speak plus all those we didn’t put on the first two albums.

“When you form an idea for an album you want the songs on it to be as cohesive as you can, so you can end up leaving good songs out occasionally.”

Rebecca is particularly excited about the forthcoming live album.

“ Live is what we are about,” she said. “I’m not a studio person - I think every album should be live. It’s a true representation of what I am.”

Rebecca’s Colne appearance will be a particularly poignant one as she will be part of the Cliff Stocker Memorial Night on the British Stage at Pendle Hippodrome.

Cliff, who died this year ,was frontman of the band Slack Alice and was a hugely influential figure on the blues scene and at the festival.

“He was instrumental in getting me on at Colne in the first place,” said Rebecca. “He was such an amazing, genuine guy. Cliff was a total man of his word and I owed him a lot.

“He will be sadly missed not only for being an amazing frontman and work he did with Slack Alice but also because he was one of the genuine people.

“I still can’t believe he won’t be there this year, it’s going to be very strange but hopefully we can give him a fitting tribute.”

n Rebecca Downes, British Stage, Sunday, August 28, 8pm.