TRUCK FESTIVAL 2016 REVIEW

Well, it’s extremely overdue, but don’t condemn us to the gallows just yet it’s been a busy month! We’ve been all over the place Poland, Croatia, Manchester you name it we’ve done it. But it’s time to stop slacking and get back to what we do best. Next on the agenda is Truck, a small festival in the quaint Oxfordshire town of Steventon. Truck has been growing year on year and has now reached an established level of national recognition. They’ve developed the presence to attract some seriously good acts such as Slaves, Catfish and The Bottlemen, Everything Everything, Circa Waves and many more. Truck 2017 looks to be one for the diary if their current trajectory is anything to go by. Despite this rather rapid level of growth they manage to maintain that small festival glow about the weekend, with lots of local retailers/ food stalls and extreme attention to detail in all aspects. The festival had a significant growth spurt from 2015 to 2016 changing from a 2 day festival into your traditional 3 day event. Adjacent to this the capacity of the festival grew and subsequently the camping areas and grounds etc. It’s great to see a small franchise like this succeeding on the big stage. Having stemmed from a small boutique record/ coffee shop on the Cowley Road , Oxford (also the birth place of TRW), it’s remarkable to see what they have achieved so far.

We first went to Truck last year and after having such a great time we decided to head back. This year we had lots more to explore with new stages, more stalls, and food outlets not to mention the after-hours entertainment. That has to be one of Truck’s biggest selling points for us, apart from the lax attitude towards alcohol, the nightlife is boss. After the headliner has packed up and moved along the festival develops a new surge of life. EVERY single stage has something going on, from silent disco’s to Switch DJ’s, Rock and Indie DJ’s even the Saloon Bar was buzzing. This is the icing on the cake, something that is overlooked at larger UK Festivals. After hours at Reading and Leeds is a rather tragic epidemic. Your only choice is to stand in a queue the size of Peter Crouch’s shlong; wait for a ropey silent disco with crap cheesy music and all that while your level of sobriety has deteriorated from Pete Doherty to Mother Teresa. Then comes the sucker punch, you get to the front of the queue only to be told that your Robinsons bottle full of Vodka Coke isn’t a valid +1. Fuck you bouncer, fuck you. At Truck, we entered the Silent Disco with enough alcohol to destabilise a large elephant. The bouncer didn’t even batter an eyelid. On top of that, half of our group didn’t have enough dollar for the headphone deposit, was that an issue? NO, we managed to barter with the chap and eventually came to an agreement. The beauty of small festivals! It’s just a very down to earth environment; it feels less like a corporate powerhouse and more like a community. SMALL FESTIVALS ARE THE WAY FORWARD!

Truck has a knack of booking top notch bands, in particular the rising stars. This year the lineup wasn’t short of exciting new bands, the issue was trying to get round and see all of them. Last year was Slaves and The Wytches. This year we had Pretty Vicious, Spring King, Sundara Karma, Baby Strange, Magic Gang, Traams, Rat Boy, Blossoms the list could go on and on. But you get the deal, lots of music to be discovered. We managed to get about and see A LOT of music, highlight of the weekend I hear you ask? Without even a pause for thought, Baby Strange. They played Sunday afternoon on the Veterans & Virgins stage to a tiny crowd of about 100 or so people. Don’t be fooled by the lack of crowd though, this was a rampant occasion. We had all your gig essentials, crowd surfing, moshpits, stage invasions some kid even climbed the tents centre pole and blared the lyrics back at the stage. It’s clear Baby Strange are one for the future, they’ve got themselves a decent following and with their debut album ‘Want It Need It’ on the horizon they are sure to get bigger and bigger. The 3 piece are from Glasgow, Scotland formed of two brothers Connaire and Aidan McCann on Bass and Drums with their mate Johnny Madden on lead guitar and vocals. The band played a half hour set of their garagey rock, with big hitters ‘Pleasure City’, ‘Friend’, ‘Pure Evil’ and ‘California Sun’ all making an appearance. It was a proper grass roots gig, raw, passionate, humble and insanely energetic. At one point lead guitarist Johnny Madden went rogue playing ‘Pleasure City’ prematurely as the band stuck to the setlist. They ended up playing completely different songs before stopping, laughing and explaining to the crowd. Madden blamed the mishap on his hungover state before taking a hench swig of his beer and cracking on. Good lad! We managed to catch Madden after the gig walking round the tent to the backstage area, he was happy to stop and had a chat with us. We showered the band with praise and even touched on what it was like to tour with Slaves last year. Good quality band and sound lads! Right that’s your cue, go pre-order their debut album and buy tickets for their autumn tour NOW.

Friday was a bit of a rush, we came off the A34 at about half 10/11 to a shitstorm of traffic. It was a lot more organised than in 2015 and moved fairly swiftly but the shire volume of cars was the issue. It’s cool though we had the windows down, tunes blaring and soon enough the lengthy queue had passed. By the time we had tackled the mammoth traffic, parked up, exchanged our wristbands, lugged our bags, found a suitable camping spot and set up the tents it was about half 2. The music was already well underway at this point, it was time to down half a crate of Fosters and head over to the music tents. The first band we caught was Black Peaks. Having seen their name floating about Twitter and briefly checking out their music prior we thought it would be a good idea to go and see what they’re all about. Initial thought was ‘holy shit’ both musically and visually. Their music packs a fucker of a punch and the lead singer looks like The Hound and The Mountains long lost brother. If it’s proper aggression fueled hard rock you’re after then this is the band for you! It definitely blew away the cobwebs and got our festival off to a bang. Thinking they sound like your cup of tea? We’ll help you get started, go listen to ‘Saviour’ and ‘Glass Built Castles’ and let us know what you think in the comments below or shout us on Twitter.

We’re a rather musically diverse group here at TRW, whilst some of us like waking up with a savage neck ache after an evening of sweaty head banging others prefer the serenity of music, more chilled in nature. So since we’re all about appealing to the masses we decided to go and check out Eliza and The Bear after Black Peaks. They played over on the Market Stage, the biggest of the music tents, just after The Magic Gang. The tent was heaving; we managed to squeeze in towards the back just in time for them to come on stage. You can’t ask for much more on a sunny Friday afternoon really. Eliza and The Bear are the epitome of feel good summery music, they may not be up your street on a day to day basis but given the right environment we bet our bottom dollar they can win you over. Drinks were flowing, good spirits all-round the festival had kicked off to the perfect start. Our next checkpoint was over at the mainstage with Jurassic 5 and Catfish and The Bottlemen. The sun was setting and the festival began to illuminate as the first headliner took to the stage. Catfish and The Bottlemen are hot property at the moment, basking in the glory of their second album ‘Ride’. The welsh lads fought their way to the top, after years of slogging it, desperate to make the big time but their moment came and damn do they deserve it. Their first two albums are a testament to indie rock, fantastically written with slight elegance and maturity. There’s a faint mancunian twang to their sound much like a millennial Oasis, which is product of lead singer Van McCann’s Cheshire heritage. They aren’t short of big guitar and bold choruses, a trade that was lost somewhere in the midst of the late nighties. They appear to have revived this forgotten art and given it a fresh breath of life. They played an incredible set with a balance of songs from both albums. The final track Tyrants was a winner for us, you can check the full setlist here: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/catfish-and-the-bottlemen/2016/hill-farm-steventon-england-1bff3998.html . They band are touring the UK later this year, we highly recommend you go grab tickets, it’s not to be missed.

Saturday morning was a struggle, waking up in a tent feeling like you’ve been smashed round the head by Goliath isn’t the one. Usually Saturday morning hangovers are nursed by a bacon sandwich, cup of tea and Soccer AM unfortunately none of these amenities were close by. Enough of feeling sorry for ourselves, we’re at a music festival time to get up, brush off the self-pity and crack on with the day. Despite this rather inspiring pep talk, a cup of tea was still going to be a necessary part of my recovery. So after the banging cuppa it was time to crack open the Kopparberg Keg and check out lineup. What bands were on the agenda today? We had Spring King, Sundara Karma, Pretty Vicious, Rat Boy, Traams, Swim Deep, Circa Waves, Virgin Kids and Manic Street Preachers. Not a lot then! Unfortunately a subsequent issue to a day of good music is clashes. There were bound to be some clashes with the bands we wanted to see BUT we were determined to get round and see as many as possible. We hear yah.. ‘cut the shit and give us the highlights!’. Well Saturday’s best band had to be Pretty Vicious on the Market Stage.

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be bitten by a rabid dog? …..Listen to Pretty Vicious. Their music is ferocious, raw angsty rock at its most snarly. The immediate thought is, shit where the fuck are their parents? The band look like they got lost on their way to a 14+ MCR gig. Age is but a number though and these lads from Merthyr, Wales, sure show us that. It’s ridiculous how good they are for their age, most kids knocking about in bands at 18 achieve nothing but giving the whole neighborhood a raging headache. It’s polished mayhem. Well-rehearsed, practiced, fine tuned however you want to put it they have chiseled it down to an involuntary movement. Frontman Brad Griffiths is probably up there on stage doing fucking maths homework in his head whilst shredding out his songs it’s that natural. They have a stage presence though one that emulates a messy, give a fuck attitude to resonate with their teenage following. Spitting on the floor, knocking down mic stands all part of the Virgin EMI contract I’m sure. They don’t let their age hinder them in the slightest, no, they use it to their advantage. The name says it all really, they are pretty fucking vicious. Their cut-throat punk isn’t something to be brushed off, get yourselves down to one of their gigs, knock back a couple of lagers and get loose . Fortunately for you they’re touring in September so get down to your local gig and check them out! They really are one of the most exciting prospects to come out of 2016 so far!

We’ve probably overstayed our welcome on the Pretty Vicious fan parade, so swiftly moving on. We didn’t manage to check out Spring King, but hey ho! We saw them at Goldenvoice UK’s event at the Dome, Tufnell Park with The Wytches a week before. A surprisingly good act for us was Swim Deep, admittedly we hadn’t really given them the time of day prior to seeing them live at Truck, there are so many bloody bands out there it’s nearly impossible to give them all a fair listen. We can safely say having seen them live, they will be a firm fixture in all our playlists what a fantastic set! Likewise RatBoy and Circa Waves were equally as impressive both taking to the mainstage later in the day making their presence known and both drawing large crowds.

Saturday night was even heavier than the first! I woke up Sunday morning barely knowing who or where I was, feeling as deflated as Johnny Vegas’s Lilo. Again hair of the dog is the only solution for this tragic affair. We’ve already spoken about Baby Strange but Sunday was packed with some other great bands like Blossoms, Mystery Jets, We Are The Ocean and Gnarwolves. We should probably start with the negative and if you’re a follower of our blogs then you will know well that we detest talking about negative aspects of albums/gigs. But it has to be done so here we are! Everything Everything’s set was absolutely shocking. We are big fans of Everything Everything, ‘Cough Cough’ is a firm fixture on most of our Summer playlists and their new album ‘Get To Heaven’ is an absolute cracker. Their studio work is immaculate, perfectly recorded, free flowing and sweet to the touch. Every aspect from bass/ drums to vocals is pristine. Their live sets on the other hand couldn’t be further away from the truth. It’s messy, out of tune, boring and to be honest an absolute shambles. We had heard rumours of their poor live performances leading up to their set at Truck. Being stubborn we didn’t believe the ghost whispers. But we can now confirm that this is SO true. We get that their music in nature is more vulnerable than your distortion driven rock and roll BUT a band of their calibre should surely be able to perform on stage as well as in the studio, am I right? Well they can’t and to be honest it was a huge disappointment. Lead singer Jonathan Higgs has a unique voice to say the least and this was the most noticeable mishap with the set. The only thing we can assume is that their tracks are mastered to fuck in the studio to keep his voice in tune. Anyway, enough of the bad let’s talk about the good!

Blossoms were fucking fantastic! We’re you really expecting any other outcome? Of course you weren’t. Out of 2016’s rising stars, Blossoms have to be the pinnacle. Supporting Kasabian, scoring a number one album, headline tours, worldwide recognition, they’ve done it all. Their set was a flurry of chilled synth and rhythmic tranquility. Again meticulously constructed, their music has traces of neat and tidy psychedelia twisting around the glitter cladded pop core. Yeah, it’s Indie Rock, but reformed into a poppy Pink Floyd/ Joy Division hybrid. The crowd was full of critical judgement as the highly anticipated Stockport lads step to the stage. It starts with hesitant head bopping until the mood shifts with the realisation that what’s being witnessed is a thing of beauty. We move into some hip shaking before crowd pleaser Charlemagne washes away those tentative minds and hip shaking turns to full boogie town. Their set really was something special, if you’ve seen them live before you’re probably nodding your head aggressively in agreement, if you haven’t you’re probably sat there with your wallet out ready to book tickets already. You’re doing the right thing….

As far as dire situations go Mystery Jets clashing with We Are the Ocean was a code red situation. This decision divided the group, half stayed to watch Mystery Jets whilst the rest of us headed over to The Nest for We Are The Ocean. They’ve come a long way since the emo days with that unbearable wanker who used to scream . The best part of We Are the Ocean always was and still is lead vocalist and guitarist Liam Cromby. His voice is incredible. Gone are the days of emo screamo and dawn the day of alternative rock for WATO. It was a real pleasant surprise for us having parted ways with their music years ago roughly around the time my balls dropped and I developed bum fluff. How wrong was I, all the while I was aging so were they. Check out ‘Good For You’ from their new album ‘Ark’ it wouldn’t sound out of place on Black Keys ‘El Camino’ album. It just shows how far they’ve come and how their sound has adapted over the years. It’s barely the same band.

Truck is a great festival for music discovery each year they stage some of the best new bands in the country. It’s all there on a plate ready for you to lap up, so get yourselves down to Hill Farm, Steventon in July 2017 for a weekend of quality music. You won’t be disappointed!