LIVE: Y-Not Festival

 

Seeing that the festival had been nominated at the UK Festival Awards for ‘Best Small Festival’ and been a previous holder of the ‘Best Toilet’ award no less, I eased into my best dressed guest at the fest vest with high expectations; hoping that the commercial pungency of the modern festival would be overpowered by chummy, Beadle-y brotherhood, cutting edge music and spiritual togetherness with a fresh pine scent. Luckily it seems the people behind the scenes were hoping for something similar. The tagline for the festival is SMALL – FRESH – LOUD… and on this trident of a manifesto it didn’t disappoint.

 

The atmosphere as soon as we arrived reminded me of those impromptu last-minute parties that end up being the ones you still talk about with misty-eyed nostalgia. People here were all laughing, playing, and dancing with genuine gay abandon, there was…something…different going on here. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. But I REALLY liked it.

 

Caught up in the heady excitement of the place, we headed merrily over to the bar tent, to be greeted with a mediaeval-feel scene of maidens and squires, haybales, and cheap hearty ales and ciders. Nice atmosphere again, and well-priced drinks! Despite the YNot gang deciding it was NotOn to bring your own drinks into the arena, the experience of the bar coupled with the not altogether incongruous cocktails tent made sure lubrication was adequate for a festive vibe.

 

Feeling refreshed and also giddy from the experience of a clean festival toilet, we headed to the Quarry Stage to catch our first band of the evening – Goldheary Assembly. Before they even started, a fan to our right decided to proffer an unsolicited slice of hype by stating that they were too good to be playing this festival, and they were only doing it as a favour…instantly setting them up for a fall in my eyes. Turned out they were actually pretty gosh-darn good. GH bashed through a polished set of melodic pop songs with impressive harmony vocals from the two front men, who were very likeable; despite being extremely unthreatening in a Monkees’ Davy Jones type way. I’d take them home to meet my gran’s local vicar.

 

 

Next up was Foy Vance, a seriously talented chimney sweep from the Emerald Isle, who made everyone swoon and titter in equal measure thanks to his cracking blue-eyed voice , songwriting, and atmospheric looping and layering of guitar noises coupled with a cheeky twinkle. I like this guy a lot, check him out.

 

Headliners in the Quarry tent were Get Cape Wear Cape Fly who sported an unlikely but confident frontman, who quickly built up a good rapport with the audience, and held court with a strong set of power pop songs which the crowd lapped up like a lapdog with a lappy doing laps in Lapland. Good job guys!

 

We then headed over to the main stage to catch headliners The Futureheads. 6 or 7 pints deep I thought I’d try my luck at getting backstage to get closer to the action. Turns out I happen to look like a member of a festival circuit band, as before I even opened my mouth to discuss my rights as a press-type, the security chap asked me which band I was in…Being slightly devoid of cogent though at the time, I blurted out “I’m due on in 10 mins” (headline band already playing??), to which the security chap blithely replied “well, you’d better get a shift on then mate” and waved both me and my partner through! Winner!! This ended up with the two of us standing on the main stage directly behind the band, whilst they demolished the night with a cracking set! From our viewpoint, the crowd were loving it… this was going to be a tough moment to beat….had we peaked too soon?

 

The next morning greeted us with a Withnail “b*stard-behind-the-eyes” hangover, and more grey windy weather. An all too necessary trip to the award-winning toilets soon killed any hope of the award been given for 2010. They had gone from an oasis of plastic paradise to a biohazard seemingly overnight.

 

After recuperating from the shock we busted open the disposable BBQ’s (nice of the YNOT to allow these, total blessing!) and kicked back for a while….with flashes of the night before…dodgems? Did I really make it on the main stage? I love those morning after puzzles…

 

Once recovered, we headed over to the Acoustic Tent around 3.15pm to catch what was going down, and caught the last few songs of a set by a band I couldn’t catch the name of, playing Paul Simon-esque rhythms and entertaining the crowd – whoever you were – nice one. There was also some cute looking arts and crafts going down in the corner, and the whole chilled out vibe of the tent was just what we needed.

 

Kill It Kid were the first full band that caught my attention on the Saturday, with bluesy riffs and a thumping rhythm section, they played a storming set, swinging powerfully between Rage and Bon Jovi – an interesting combo!

 

Next were Post War Years, who I really liked. Good healthy beat with piano and harpsichord sounds, they cranked up the epic-ness with an electronic Arcade Fire type feel, catch these guys if you can – I’ll credit them with shaking off my morning after fuzz at the very least!

 

Morning Parade also stood out for me, an interesting use of ZX Spectrum sound effects, great music to jump about to, and despite the singer’s voice dipping occasionally into Robbie Williams territory; they had the catchiest chorus of the weekend so far with a track called Rabbit In Your Headlights.

 

 

We headed back to the tent for some scran, then remembered that THePETEBOX was doing a set in the Quarry Tent, so legged it over to catch the last 20 mins, and saw him completely own the place. An awesome set which saw him pwn an MGMT number and hit the crowd with an amazing encore – this guy really comes into his own in a place like this. The tent was so packed a few hundred people were crammed together outside to try to catch a glimpse. Awesome.

 

We them headed over to the main stage and caught Los Campesinos and The Subways do what they do best, with The Subs’ proving themselves worthy headliners for the Saturday. We then managed to kick back in the bar, meet some friendly fellow-festers, then enjoy the cracking tunes of the dance tent until collapsing before it got light. Have to say at this point I was impressed with the security team looking after the festival; they seemed to strike just the right balance of policing and keeping friendly, laid-back and within the vibe. Nice one fellas.

 

Feeling unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed, another grey blanket of cloud greeted us, along with the obligatory metal rock/goth band that seemed to always be put on at the start of the days music, maybe to cut through the smog of a collective hangover. The Durge  kicked off some slightly slower death-rock, with some nice guitar and drum work, but ultimately few surprises, although I have to admit that kind of thing ain’t my bag baby, so maybe my opinion don’t matter s**t to their fans anyhoo – good luck to ‘em.

 

By this point, the toilets were pretty much a no-go area for the ladies, so we managed to creep off to find a particular pair of underused toilets in an area I don’t want to divulge in case we go back next year…. cheers to our tent neighbours for tipping us off for that one! (Probably literally) lifesavers thou art!

 

The Tastebuds rocked up next on the main stage, and with some unusual rhythms and changes to their songs, they definitely caught my attention – I likes a well-written tune I does.

 

Up next came one of the musical highlights of the festival for what seemed like a lot of people – King Pleasure & The Biscuit Boys. A swing/jive band, they managed to whip the crowd up into a level of gay abandon that really shook the fug off the forhead – what a total bunch of winners. Everyone forgot themselves and gave into the onslaught of charisma and fun, turning it from a crowd into a party, with the brilliant singer oozing out a strangely sick and sarcastic croon – think Richard Cheese. They hit back with an encore, as far as I could tell, the only encore of the support acts!

 

Over in the Quarry Tent, Fists made some pleasingly urgent and melodic noise, these guys are another band to look out for…

 

Alas, it was at this point that something we had savoured from one of the food vans began to disagree with our constitutions, and talk of home comforts began to creep into our conversation….

 

We checked out Yearner Babies to see if they could rescue us from our pit of despair, but due perhaps to the fact they had to follow King Pleasure, and had next to no time to set up and warm up, it wasn’t the tightest of sets, and rather than face the horror combination of dicky tumtums and festival toilets, we packed up and headed home, making sure we left before our experience and reputations were literally tarnished…

 

(I spoke to a couple of people who did stay on til Monday morning, and apparently the music was still kickin, with the Mystery Jets pulling off an awesome set, but also all the toilets got pushed over spilling their contents all over the site, so I’m counting us lucky that we bailed when we did.