Before one member of McFly hits the Strictly Come Dancing dancefloor, the group first have a date with fans at Newmarket Racecourses.

McFly lead singer and guitarist Tom Fletcher has been confirmed as one of this year's Strictly celebrity contestants, ironically following in the footsteps of bandmate Harry Judd, who lifted the Glitterball trophy in 2011.

Before the BBC One dancing series kicks off next month, McFly will headline Summer Saturday Live at Newmarket Racecourses on Saturday, August 28.

Dunmow Broadcast: McFly - Dougie Poynter, Danny Jones, Tom Fletcher and Harry Judd - will headline Summer Saturday Live at Newmarket Racecourses on August 28.McFly - Dougie Poynter, Danny Jones, Tom Fletcher and Harry Judd - will headline Summer Saturday Live at Newmarket Racecourses on August 28. (Image: Supplied by Chuff Media)

Ahead of the gig, we caught up with Dougie Poynter from the chart-topping Star Girl and 5 Colours in Her Hair band.

Dougie is no stranger to Newmarket having performed there before, both with McFly and McBusted.

On returning to the July Course, he said: "Every few years it comes around and we like to do it.

"The whole reason why we do what we do is because we love playing live shows. We love being in the studio as well, but there's nothing else in the job that we love more than playing live.

"Newmarket is pretty different to our regular gigs, everybody is dressed in their absolute best and it's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. It's awesome – I absolutely love it.

"We've played gigs at 10pm at night – in sweaty places – where people act more civilized! And then you have Newmarket where it absolutely kicks off in the middle of the day when everyone is in fancy hats and tuxedos – it’s rad."

The I'll Be OK stars have just resumed playing live after lockdown. Late last year during lockdown the pop-rock band released their sixth studio album, Young Dumb Thrills, which went straight into the UK album charts at number two.

Bassist Dougie says: "I'm so thankful that firstly, we'd already recorded 80 to 90 per cent of the album so the rest of it could be done remotely because everyone has home studios and stuff now.

"It was only the little things that needed finishing and it meant we had something to focus on. Months of mixing, mastering and then getting all the artwork together.

Dunmow Broadcast: McFly will headline Summer Saturday Live at Newmarket Racecourses on August 28.McFly will headline Summer Saturday Live at Newmarket Racecourses on August 28. (Image: Supplied by Chuff Media)

"Even that was challenging, but fun at the same time. With the artwork, I tried to come up with some kind of theme that wouldn't need us in it, so that's the reason for the bear on the front.

"We weren't sure if we were able to do photo shoots so thought ‘right okay, let's create some kind of character for Young Dumb Thrills that can do everything for us – if need be, we can animate him’.

"It was a challenge, but at least I had something to focus on."

Dougie also spent a lot of time during lockdown playing video games.

"Video games were my saviour," he admits. "The world of video games, it felt to me, seemed pretty unaffected.

"And it was kind of like, it was guilt free playing right? Because whereas before I was like, ‘ah, I can't do eight hours of playing online with my friends, that’s a bit excessive’, but when you have nothing else to do, I was like, ‘cool! Well, I'm just gonna do this until I fall asleep!’ It kept a sense of normality."

Dunmow Broadcast: McFly will headline Summer Saturday Live at Newmarket Racecourses, a daytime family event.McFly will headline Summer Saturday Live at Newmarket Racecourses, a daytime family event. (Image: Supplied by Chuff Media)

Incredibly, McFly are just two years away from celebrating their 20th anniversary as a band.

As Summer Saturday Live is a daytime family event at Newmarket, original fans will now be bringing their children to see the All About You group live on stage.

"It just seems that it happened overnight!" admits Dougie. "About 10 years ago, I think it stopped being the same kind of audience. There were kids at the shows again and it was so weird!

"When we first started, it was people that were our age, and then everyone kind of grew up, and then they spawned more humans! Give us another 10 years, it'll be people's grandkids there!"

Tickets for McFly at Summer Saturday Live are available from thejockeyclub.co.uk/live