Ahead of Blue's performance at the Norfolk Showground this summer, band member Simon Webbe tells us of his excitement to share the stage with legends like Billy Ocean at the Reload Festival 2017.

Festival season in East Anglia is kind of a big deal with over 25 music extravaganzas taking place across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex this summer, attracting superstars from across the world.

Big names such as Craig David, The 1975, Pendulum, Belinda Carlisle and Catherine Jenkins OBE will be heading for the region, and joining them will be noughties favourite, Blue.

Formed in 2000, Blue are a British boy band made up of members Antony Costa, Duncan James, Lee Ryan and Simon Webbe, who are best known for hits such as All Rise, One Love and Breathe Easy.

As they begin to prepare for their big performance at the Reload Festival on Sunday, September 10, we caught up with band member Simon Webbe, to find out what fans in Norfolk can expect from the show...

How did you get involved with Reload Festival?

A friend of mine got in contact with me, she actually lives just round the corner from my house. I couldn't believe she was involved in something so big.

Billy Ocean and Soul II Soul are also performing - how are you feeling about joining such an impressive line-up?

Sharing the stage with these legends that came before us and actually being a headline act is amazing, Though it does feel a bit disrespectful if I'm honest, these are the people paved the way for acts like Blue to come through, but it's all in the name of music and festivals for me are about bringing people together. We all have our differences, we all have our own personal tastes but I think music is the one thing that unites people - well that and sport.

Who are you most looking forward to seeing at the Festival?

To be honest, I'm mainly looking forward to seeing my boys because I don't see them often enough. We're all doing different things at the moment. Lee is on Eastenders, Dunc's in Hollyoaks and Ant's on the road in a play, so it'll probably be the first time in about a year that all four of us will be on stage together.

What can fans at Reload expect from Blue?

We'll be putting on an energetic show. It'll be a real blast from the past for people as we'll be singing the usual hits that we're known for, but also hopefully dropping a couple of new tracks as well if we've got anything ready by that time.

Will we be getting a new album Blue album anytime soon?

The plan is always there to make another album, we want to make the best album we can possibly make. We're aiming to release something next year so hopefully within the next few weeks we'll be back in the studio.

Other than Reload, do you have any other big performances coming up?

We're doing one other festival in Dagenham over the summer but we don't normally do festivals, we usually just do private gigs. This will be great though, it's a good way of letting people know that we're still around.

• Blue will be performing at Reload Festival 2017 at the Norfolk Showground on September 10. Tickets are available online now from reloadfestival.co.uk