Headline act – The Smashing Pumpkins on stage (Image: Gem Harris \/ Colchester Castle Summer Series)<\/span> Lesley Watson, 58, of Clacton, watched the James and Madness concerts at this year\u2019s Colchester Castle Summer Series and praised them for being \u201cwell organised\u201d.<\/p>\nAnd she already has her eye on acts she would love to see grace Colchester next year.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cThis year’s Summer Series in Castle Park was just, wow, so many great acts visited our fabulous city.<\/p>\n
\u201cNext year, among\u00a0others, I would love to see The Lathums, Courteeners, The Meffs, Johnny Marr, Shed 7, Billy Ocean, Suede, Bad Manners, The Prodigy, The Proclaimers and Del Amitri.<\/p>\n
Colchester resident Jack Morgan, 31, said: “I am excited as to who will be performing next year.<\/p>\n
“I was unable to get tickets to some of the shows and heard a lot of people outside of Colchester travelled to come to these events.<\/p>\n
“It would be nice if residents could be involved in a presale for 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am holding out Dolly Parton and The Purple Dawgs will come next year.”<\/p>\n
Steve Hurdle, 45, co-owner of Best Days Vintage in Eld Lane, is a fan of indie rock bands\u00a0so he would like to see a range of rockers take to the stage next year.<\/p>\n
Mr Hurdle said: \u201cIt\u2019s amazing for Colchester to be able to host such amazing events.\u00a0 Long may it continue and grow.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach event seemed to be a massive success, and it can only be great for tourism and businesses like ours.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d love to see the bands keep coming, maybe Keane, The Strokes, Primal Scream, Paul Weller and Manic Street Preachers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colchester resident Dean Frost said: “I’m thrilled to hear it’s returning.<\/p>\n
“I’d like to see Bob Dylan headline.”<\/p>\n
Resident Maxiene Cartwright said: “I\u00a0went to see UB40, Tom Jones & Madness,\u00a0loved them all.<\/p>\n
“It was very well organised in the accessible area with lovely, helpful staff.<\/p>\n
“I would love to see Robbie Williams, Lewis Capaldi, Ed Sheeran or Teddy Swims.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source uk.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MUSIC lovers have shared their hopes for next year’s Colchester Castle Summer Series. Headline acts for the string of concerts included The Smashing Pumpkins on August 14,\u00a0Busted on August 15,\u00a0Craig David on August 16,\u00a0Tom Jones on August 18, Texas on August 21, and\u00a0Madness on August 23. Two festivals also\u00a0happened, UB40 featuring Ali Campbell headlined\u00a0reggae day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1991489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[359921,359922,359924,359925,345179,359923,306869],"class_list":["post-1991488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-ali-campbell","tag-colchester-castle","tag-craig-david","tag-headline-acts","tag-summer-series","tag-the-smashing-pumpkins","tag-tom-jones"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/From-The-Prodigy-to-Paul-Weller.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1991488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1991489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1991488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1991488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1991488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}