( That's half past two to you. ) A good start to the day.
And, speaking of the North, next up were The Twang from... the Midlands. Well, close enough. If anything, The Twang sound more northern than Brummie as they're cut from the same ( flared ) cloth as The Happy Mondays - loose, baggy, indie-dance anthems, and a frontman who has probably sampled the occasional chemical in his time. I saw them way back in 2012 at the good old Gloucester Guildhall with my mate Tom. We'd just chanced upon them and thought they were great fun, and I'm glad to say they're still just as entertaining. Not life-changing by any means, but a band who are emphatically Good At What They Do. And their cheeky cover of Bran Van 3000's Drinking In LA was a groove-filled delight.
Incidentally, you can take it as read that I didn't see any of these bands' sets in their entirety. Although I'm always determined to catch every last second of a band's performance, Sarah is equally determined to make sure we have adequate food, drinks, loo breaks, etc. and she tends to win out.
Back in the tent for the dreampop stylings of Pale Blue Eyes. This band of misfits ( honestly, the least glamorous band ever ) were a shoegaze cyclone of beautiful noise. Wave after wave of guitar tones washed over the crowd as Matt Board's keening, fragile vocals told tales of strange times and places. Nods to the Velvet Underground, Cocteau Twins and The Horrors in songs like Takes Me Over and The Dreamer made for a hypnotic, rapturous sound and ensured the audience in the packed-out tent left with their ears buzzing and their brain cells vibrating.
More main stage action followed with an energetic set from The Pigeon Detectives. They're a band I only really knew for yob-indie classic I Found Out, so I was keen to see what they could do.
What they could do was put on a kick-ass show. I mean, literally - frontman Matt Bowman jumped, bounced, high-kicked and did the splits all throughout the set, like an indie Eveready bunny. The band's Jam-meets-The Hives high energy performance was a breath of fresh air for a Wychwood main stage lineup that had been a bit laidback thus far. Matt's pointing skills were also excellent, see below:
Typically, I missed the first few songs of the set but got down the front as I Found Out was finishing and the band launched into the Ruts-like riff of I Don't Mind and then careered through more musical short, sharp shocks. A very tight, very enthusiastic, very entertaining, just...very everything kind of set.
Our last chance to dodge into the tent, and we caught the most danceable act of the day, Adult DVD - and isn't that a cracking name for a band? This frighteningly young and talented band kicked out the jams with some Underworld-style dance anthems, welded to some Shaun Ryder-esque vocals and some surprisingly rockin' guitar sounds. Although they looked more like the kind of tykes who would have been shoplifting Adult DVDs from Blockbuster back in the day, the dance-punk outfit pumped out some insanely catchy choons, such as the oddly-named Bill Murray, and turned the tent into one big sweaty mess of dancing punters. Absolute top-shelf, wrapped in plastic, feet-moving fun. ( I've used the word "some" a lot in this paragraph but I'm proud of it - you hear? Proud. )
Into the home stretch now ( well, this was a racecourse after all ) and some Welsh pop-punk from probably the loudest band of the day, Feeder.
Feeder are a band I never paid too much attention to in their heyday, only really knowing their biggest hit, Buck Rogers - you know, the one about a car that goes "it's got leather seats, it's got a CD player" - just as retro as the Adult DVD concept, yeah? I'd kind of thought of them as Green Day wannabees and not much more. I was interested to see if I'd been wrong. Uh, yeah actually. ( Not for the first time, it has to be said. ) Although - guess what? - I missed the start of the set and so missed the aforementioned Buck Rogers, we made our way towards the stage as the set was kicking into gear and were rewarded with a powerful, punchy set by the Welsh guitar wizards.
I realised I actually knew more of their songs than I'd thought, and the ones I didn't know instantly worked their magic with catchy hooks and tasty guitar riffs. The propulsive Come Back Around could give Foo Fighters a run for their money, while Just The Way I'm Feeling was a slower indie-ballad which almost strayed into the dreaded Stereophonics area but just pulled back from the brink. Singer / guitarist Grant Nicholas was a quietly confident frontman who mostly let his guitar do the talking, while bassist Taka Hirose was easily the coolest dude in the field that day. Seven Days In The Sun was a perfect, Summery brat-punk anthem ( reminiscent of Ash at their poppiest ) while they finished with a shout-along Just A Day, with its lovely "Doo do-doo doo!" refrain . I've had to re-evaluate Feeder after this gig and will need to seek out more of their music - perfect for blasting out of the car in this hot weather.
The sun was now starting to set over Wychwood and it was time for the headliners: Kaiser Chiefs!
The Kaisers were my main draw for booking the Saturday at the festival. They're not a band I've followed closely, but they've always maintained a high standard in indie-pop anthems ( and that's another word that's cropped up a lot in this review ) and I knew they'd be perfect festival headliner material.
Nattily-dressed and shaking a tambourine / his arse, singer Ricky Wilson bounded onto the stage and proceeded to own it, baby. Although occasionally verging on cheesy ( he was, after all, a host on The Voice ), Wilson was a force of nature as he jumped around the stage, perched himself on top of monitors, and generally did a lot of "shouting and pointing" to adopt Jarvis Cocker's description of his own stagecraft. He made sure each and every one of us felt a part of the Kaiser experience.
Kicking off with the previously unknown to me Factory Gates, the Kaisers soon began wheeling out the big guns: Every Day I Love You Less and Less, Heat Dies Down and Modern Way were Blur-inspired Britpop Mk II pop explosions - all hooks, melodies and mob-handed backing vocals. Continuing their chameleonic early 2000s take on Britpop, Na Na Na Na Naaa was a convincing recalibration of Supergrass' greatest hits, with a totally gnarly '70s guitar solo, while Never Miss A Beat strung some Suede-like guitar sounds over a Bash Street Kids manifesto: "What do you want for tea? I want crisps." Wedding-disco perennial, Ruby, sounded far tougher and gutsier when played live and was, of course, the cue for a mass singalong.
Many of their songs explore the lurid night time antics of a northern city, presumably Leeds, and the paranoid likes of I Predict A Riot and The Angry Mob almost prefigured the appalling scenes of right wing thuggery that exploded across the country a few weeks later. Scarily relevant to our fractured times.
After a breathless encore rush through The Ramones classic Blitzkrieg Bop ( oh, yes! ), the Kaisers finished their energetic, energising set with a huge, shout-along Oh My God! - guitars set to 11 and Ricky screaming his way through the Cheltenham evening air, even dropping some extreeemely long vocal sounds and an American accent (!) as he did so. Massively entertaining, crowd-pleasing fun.
And that was it for Wychwood in this year that may well be called 2026. We'd hoped to go to the silent disco after the headline set, but we were too cream-crackered, plus we were travelling up to North Yorkshire on the Monday, so it seemed best to get at least a modicum of rest inbetween. We'll definitely have to go again next year, especially as the first headliner for 2027 had been announced by a plane flying over the festival, trailing a banner which said "Don't you want me, baby? See you in 2027." And if you can't figure out who that band could be, shame on you...
Back out in the sunshine and it was time to travel from the West to The South as the family-friendly-but-quietly-subversive purveyors of Radio 2-friendly pop took to the main stage, aka Sam's Stage. This rump version of The Beautiful South, minus original vocalists Paul Heaton & Dave Hemingway, was perfectly suited to an early afternoon festival slot. Lots of tunes that everyone knew or vaguely remembered had the people sitting in their camping chairs tapping their feet, while the more adventurous gently swayed along to songs like Perfect 10, Old Red Eyes Is Back and Rotterdam ( Or Anywhere ). It was all Very Pleasant. To be fair, although The South's material is just a little too vanilla for me, it was surprising just how many well-crafted, memorable songs and melodies they had to hand. While current male vocalist Gaz Birtles ( really! ) came across as one of your mates doing karaoke, the band's original female vocalist Briana Corrigan ( back in the fold after some time ) still has a fine voice, showcased especially well on the ballads like A Little Time. She told us she'd been concerned about playing Don't Marry Her, with its infamous original lyrics, after Wychwood authorities had said the festival was too family-friendly for swearing. As it was, she got the crowd to sing the closing line: "Don't marry her... fuck me." Luckily, security couldn't throw us all out. The South finished with a singalong Good As Gold ( Stupid As Mud ) and then presumably headed back Up North.
They finished with the one-two punch of Take Her Back and I'm Not Sorry: soap opera pop-punk bangers, all teen angst, lager and flirting - from a band who are resolutely not teenagers any more, but can still party as if they were.
The Kaisers were my main draw for booking the Saturday at the festival. They're not a band I've followed closely, but they've always maintained a high standard in indie-pop anthems ( and that's another word that's cropped up a lot in this review ) and I knew they'd be perfect festival headliner material.
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