Truck Festival 2014

This weekend gone I headed off into the Oxfordshire countryside for two days of music at Truck Festival 2014. Now I have had a little time to reflect on it and also look at the pictures it is time to start writing. First of all a picture that I didn't take myself, and some thanks to the weather gods...

It was a weekend in which much of the UK experienced some unusually violent summer storms. Viewed over the camper-van area and car park on Saturday afternoon this one just missed us but visited hailstones 2cm in diameter on Oxford, which is barely ten miles away. For the most part however, it was hot and sunny.
I'm always keen to catch the opening acts on as many stages as I can and this was no exception. I will add a link as soon as I can (there are many bands called Heavy Heart worldwide) but this one from South London, with its New Wave echoes, was a good first act to see.
Note added 29 July:
Heavy Heart can be found here - many thanks to the band for providing confirmation of this.

The Veterans and Virgins Stage, early Friday afternoon.

I visited all five stages at some time or other but little from the Barn Stage will feature as I spent almost no time there for one reason or another.

The smallest is The Saloon Stage and I spent a great deal of time there, as I did last year. On Friday the artist list was curated by Clubhouse Records and on the Saturday by At The Helm Records and was home to more great acoustic, roots and Americana music, both home grown and imported, than you could shake a stick at. As often as not it was packed to bursting. Very much from across 'The Pond' comes this artist.

Otis Gibbs - Saloon Stage, Friday afternoon.

Truck Festival 2013 - the indefinable aspect...

It has been three weeks and more since I last posted but that is not to say that I have vanished!
Far from it in fact and I have been listening to more, both recorded and live, then ever before (well, probably that is actually true).
More to follow very soon, but let's just start with this one photo from Truck Festival 2013, last weekend.

This is not the most obvious place to start, but then Truck is not the most obvious of festivals. It is all the better for that. This is London-based five-piece Arrows of Love on the main stage early on Saturday afternoon. Their début album is well in the works and its current working title is 'Everything's F****d'. That is not to say that Truck is anything other than a polite, well-behaved festival, for it is. It is however not entirely conventionally so. It isn't like Latitude and it isn't like End of The Road either. I can't yet quite say exactly why that is or how it manifests itself. On the other hand it is all the better for that indefinable distinction.

Festivals and stuff - Part 2

How good it would be if the weekends of Latitude and Truck Festival were as perfect as the one that we have just experienced here in sunny Somerset. When it comes to festival weather then the best one can really hope for is good planning (by all concerned) in advance and palliative measures once the show has started.
  
In my last post I mentioned that I had come across a clash-planner for Truck Festival 2011 (and also some others).  Bear in mind that it can only be as accurate as the data to which its maker has access, and you therefore keep checking back as the date nears, but as planning goes it is certainly a good place to start. It has also served to remind me of some of the acts that appearing and which made my decide to make Truck 2011 my third festival of the summer and my first time at this particular event, now in its 14th year.  I had initially considered Deer Shed 2011, a newcomer on just its second edition, but the travel issues - as it is in North Yorkshire and like Truck it is the weekend immediately after Latitude - won the day for me as much as the then published list of performers.
Looking at the Line-Up listing on the same site makes me think that this is going to be a bumper event when it comes to seeing artists that I have never really heard of before, as well as those that I have. Some on-line research will have to precede much of the more detailed planning.
In a similar vein to my post about Latitude 2011 and likewise in alphabetical order, these are some that I am aware of but have, so far, never seen live. This list is done without any reference to the clash-list: what I want to do becomes before that which is actually possible.

• Alessi's Ark
• Gunning For Tamar
• Islet
• Johnny Flynn
• Jonquil
• Justin Townes Earle
• Peggy Sue
• Pete Molinari
• Rhosyn
• Roddy Woomble
• Sea Of Bees
• Tunng

Much more to come, including more thoughts and links, very soon. Going to a festival is always exciting even when it is a familiar one. That Truck is new to me adds that extra frisson.  I was half convinced as I drove to Latitude, for the first time in 2007, that I'd just freak out and come straight back home!
  
It might be worthwhile mentioning that (as of this evening, July 3) the last Latitude 2011 Weekend Tickets are going fast and when they are gone they are gone...
As of this evening (July 5) tickets for Truck Festival 2011 are still available. See you there?