10cc to headline Friday night at Sign of the Times Festival 2025
Sign of the Times festival has announced its first headliner with 10cc at the top of Friday’s bill.
The three-day event at Church End near Little Hadham has already revealed acts including Haircut One Hundred and Ultravox singer, Band Aid legend and solo star Midge Ure.
Nick Heyward will not be the only 1980s heartthrob on stage. Paul Young is appearing with Los Pacaminos, a Tex-Mex band he formed in 1992.
10cc’s Ultimate Greatest Hits Tour will take them to Australia and New Zealand after they appear in East Herts on Friday, June 20.
The touring band are Graham Gouldman, Paul Burgess, Rick Fenn, Keith Hayman, and Iain Hornal.
Formed in Stockport by Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, 10cc became one of the most inventive and influential bands in pop music, achieving commercial, critical and creative success.
From 1972 to 1978, 10cc had five consecutive UK top 10 albums and 11 top 10 singles, including chart-toppers Rubber Bullets, I’m Not In Love and Dreadlock Holiday.
These tracks have endured and found a new generation of fans. I’m Not In Love, written by Gouldman and Stewart, features prominently in the soundtrack to the 2014 blockbuster film Guardians of the Galaxy, which spawned a number 1 album.
Dreadlock Holiday is a key element of the soundtrack to 2010’s The Social Network, about the creation of Facebook and is also the Sky Sports cricket theme in Australia.
10cc, with album sales of more than 30 million around the world, also influenced contemporary artists. Axl Rose, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Chrissie Hynde and The Feeling’s Dan Gillespie are big fans.
Gouldman attributes 10cc’s lasting appeal to the quality and individuality of the band’s songs. “They don’t seem to date; they are original, we never followed any trend we simply wrote for our own pleasure.
“The fact that the songs are being played as often on the radio today as they ever were shows how true that is.
“Year after year we get busier and busier. It’s great, we love touring and playing together and we get on really well. The audiences these days are very gratifying. You get the people you would expect, who grew up with 10cc, but you also get young kids who know the songs too,” says Gouldman.
“This is as near as you’re ever going to get to hearing the perfect 10cc. Hit after hit after hit. It’s relentless. We show no mercy.”
The first wave of acts announced for Sign of the Times, from June 20 to 22, also includes crossover tribute band Elvana; Newton Faulkner; Ferocious Dog; GUN; Hugh Cornwell; The Blockheads; Skinny Liste; When Rivers Meet; The Commoners; Kissmet; Xander and The Peace Pirates; Groovetrain; The Pistol Daisys; and The Jacques, who formed in 2014 and shared a bill with The Libertines at Hyde Park.
With two more headliners and other acts yet to be announced, Sign of the Times promises three packed days of rock, indie, pop, punk, britpop, ska, mod and alternative music for a fifth year.
