Last of the Summer gigs: The Sex Pistols, The Sunshine Underground... and Rick Astley?

 

Our Summer of outdoor gigs continued in July and August with this diverse line-up of bands: 1970s punks, 2010s indie kids and 1980s pop icons. Three days after roasting in a field in Cardiff, watching The Cure, we found ourselves in another field - this time at the Westonbirt Arboretum near Tetbury, for a very different gig experience. From the Gothic soundscapes of Robert Smith and chums to the Soul-inflected pop of THE Rick Astley. He's never gonna give you up, let you down etc. etc. 

Sarah had been a fan of Mr. Astley back in the day ( waaay before "Rick rolling" ) but had never seen him play live so, when I saw he was appearing at the Pimms-on-the-lawn-tastic Westonbirt, I instantly snapped up some tickets. It was a lovely evening, as we were between heatwaves at the time, and the very relaxed journey up into T'Cotswolds ( compared to last Summer, anyway ) was welcome indeed. With no traffic chaos this year, we got into the site well on time to buy some drinks and food, and catch support band The Lottery Winners - no photos, unfortunately. They were a very positive, upbeat and bouncy pop combo - perfect for warming up the typically sedate Westonbirt audience. Frontman Thom Rylance hurled himself around the stage, like a pilled-up teddy bear, stopping frequently to take the piss out of the crowd, especially the deckchair-bound Radio 2 listeners near the front. Although he comes across as a potential CBBC presenter, Thom also has a couple of incisive songs about his struggles with mental health - Superpower and Letter To Myself - which add some depth to the poppier material on offer. Oh, and the rock chick bassist, Kate Lloyd, was simultaneously supercool and super hot. So, a fun experience, although maybe not a band I'd purposely seek out.

And then, who was that jogging out onto the stage? Why only Mr Rick bleedin' Astley himself!

Rick set out his stall straight away with the upbeat, handclapping pop/rock of Lights Out. This mid-paced, anthemic offering was just the ticket for the Westonbirt massive and could have easily slotted into the sets of The Script or Snow Patrol last year. He then whirled us back to the Stock, Aitken & Waterman days with the machine-tooled pop of Together Forever - a song *so* '80s that I could feel my T-shirt growing shoulder pads as the first notes rang out. With its seemingly inevitable melodies and lyrics, TF ( as nobody calls it ) is factory-produced pop at its finest and a reminder of just how unlikely a star this ginger-haired lad from Merseyside was. He looked ( at the time ) like the callow youth he was, with his pretty face and bouncy quiff, but sang with the deep, deep voice of a middle-aged Soul singer from the Deep South. He's now grown into that voice and left the fresh-faced kid behind but, bloody hell, he looks good for 60! I'm hoping I'll look that good in ( gulp! ) less than three months time. ( I won't. )

Rick was an affable, good-humoured presence, still slightly bemused that his career has had this late resurgence, happily trading banter with the crowd - and especially with a couple of female mega-fans down the front who were trying their best to get his attention throughout the set. And his voice was as strong and warm as ever, the deep baritone barely touched by the dread hand of time. Which was nice.

More '80s hits sashayed up to us in the form of She Wants To Dance With Me and Whenever You Need Somebody, while a slightly cringey cover of Roy "The Boy" Orbison's Oh, Pretty Woman prompted Rick to tell us a tall tale of not quite having a song appear in the Julia Roberts film of virtually the same name. Cry For Help was one of the highlights for me - a gospel ballad with real emotional heft and a perfect showcase for Rick's heart-on-sleeve, testifying vocals.

His band were excellent, especially the female horn section ( love a horn section! ) and his trio of backing singers. They came to the fore with a sassy cover of Raye's Where Is My Husband!, while Rick took a backseat and let their wonderful gospel harmonies and cool moves take over the stage. We were virtually in the front row, so had a great view of that stage, and could really appreciate just how talented this band were. And we were treated to some very closeup views of Mr. A himself, which certainly pleased Sarah ;-)

Near the end of the set Rick moved over to the drum kit ( he's always said he should really have been a drummer ) and the band kicked into a karaoke-krazy version of AC/DC's Highway To Hell. Really. And it was proper, head-banging fun with Rick drumming up a storm and the band all grabbing guitars to bust some Angus Young moves. He finished, of course, with the hit - Never Gonna Give You Up - and, clearly, his audience haven't: they loved every minute and sang along to every song. It was a fine performance from Mr A - cheeky, heartfelt, occasionally soul-baring - and hugely entertaining. He didn't, after all, let us down.

Spin on a month and we're at a very different gig in a new-to-us venue oop North...

This was the 25th of July and we'd travelled up to Leeds, a city I'd never visited before, and specifically to the lovely Kirkstall Abbey to see the long-awaited return of The Sunshine Underground. Sarah and I had seen them a couple of times before ( although she can't remember them ) and, when I heard last year that they'd be reforming for a one-off gig in their home town, I snapped up some tickets. I was really looking forward to this one, after not seeing the band for 10 years or so, but it didn't quite work out as I'd expected.

After cheekily parking in a residential area ( and ignoring the "residents only" signs lol ) we walked down to the imposing ruined Cistercian abbey and joined the throng of punters heading towards the bars and fast-food trucks. After a quick comfort and refreshment break, we caught the first band of the day... well, our first band of the day, as The Whip ( who? ), The Futureheads and The Twang had already played in the afternoon. ( I would have liked to have seen the last two, but we have caught them before. Hey ho. ) Anyway, the first band for us were actually Hard-Fi...

This bunch of urchins were a band I was vaguely aware of in the 2010s but never really engaged with. Their debut album, Stars of CCTV, is now a staple of charity shops, part of that Great Unloading when thousands of people binned their CD players in favour of low-fi ( ironic! ) streaming services. You've probably seen it: it's got a yellow cover and is usually adjacent to Music by Madonna, or any number of Take That or Coldplay albums, somewhere at the back of Oxfam or the PDSA. But I digress. Of course.

It turns out that Hard-Fi excel at bouncy, street level indie - some very strong songs, especially opening number and probably their best known song, Cash Machine. This tale of tough times on sink estates loped in on a reggae beat and instantly got the crowd dancing. "I scratch a living, it ain't easy, you know it's a drag" sang frontman Richard Archer, and you got the impression that this band actually knew what it was like living hand to mouth and day to day. Other working class indie bangers followed with the likes of Hard To Beat ( with its Clash City Rockers-like riff ) and Living For The Weekend, a lairy anthem for disaffected youth. Of course, Hard-Fi aren't exactly da yoof any more but they can certainly kick out a punchy, tight set of top tunes as if they were still lager-swigging teenage tearaways. A great way to start the evening and a band that I'd definitely like to see again.

By this time we'd positioned ourselves fairly near to the front, at the edge of the crowd, with some of the abbey ruins right behind us. We struck up a conversation with a couple from Blackpool and their teenage daughter - they were there mostly for the next act, White Lies, and were very excited for this section of the gig. I suspect this all-day lineup benefitted some of the bands, who would probably struggle to draw a crowd this large on their own, but not White Lies, who could easily have headlined and certainly drew a huge reaction from the crowd. Their combination of gloomy lyrics, intense vocals ( despite singer Harry McVeigh apologising for his sore-throat-stricken voice ) and pyrotechnic guitar sounds put me in mind of Muse or even The Twilight Sad who we'd recently seen supporting The Cure. Again, a band I'll have to check out again in the future... and Sarah liked them too, which is always a bonus. Speaking of which...

The next band on were the eagerly-awaited ( by some ) headliners. We'd first come across The Sunshine Underground near the end of their original incarnation, when they were creating a joyous mixture of indie and rave, a very danceable, positive, keyboard-orientated splurge of colour. This gig, however, was billed as a 20th anniversary celebration of their debut album, Raise The Alarm. I bought said album earlier this year, to do some homework, and discovered it was very different. TSU sounded back then like a scratchy, angular, often quite angry indie band, very guitar-based with barely a keyboard to be heard. So, almost like a completely different band. I was hoping their set would be a mixture of both styles. Oops.

We got down the front, only about 10 rows from the crowd barrier, and stood with some very enthusiastic fans. Then the band came on stage and it totally kicked off. The crowd went absolutely nuts, jumping around, shouting the lyrics and throwing beer around. Sarah instantly took umbrage to all this, especially the being showered by beer part, and legged it as best she could out of the crowd, with me in tow. I'm slightly more used to crowd reactions like this, after years of Punk gigs, but Sarah really isn't, and she was Not Happy. We then watched the majority of the set from our previous vantage point, with Sarah now in an extremely bad mood. The band continued playing their scratchy, angular stuff ( after I'd been bigging up their more ravey style ) and she emphatically didn't like it, saying it sounded like any other indie band...

To be honest, I did enjoy a lot of TSU's set, particularly the few songs I actually knew well, but it's always difficult to fully enjoy yourself if the person you're with isn't having a good time.  The band themselves, however, were clearly having a great time, and seemed overjoyed and slightly humbled that so many people had come to see them play this hometown gig. And their performance and sound was faultless. The one-two punch of the singalong, anthemic Borders and the glow-stick-friendly Start were fantastic and reminded me why I liked the band so much in the first place. I did leave Sarah for the last few songs ( she was fine with that ) and insinuated myself further into the crowd, where it had calmed down somewhat, and I actually managed a spot of dad-dancing. Which was nice ( again ). So, it had been a frustrating experience with more troughs than peaks but, as they say, you can't win 'em all. Luckily, Sarah and I spent the next day in Leeds and had a great time - what a cool city!

Aaanyway... on to the next one. And it was back to good ol' Cardiff. Always a pleasure. Specifically, Cardiff Castle ( as seen below ) on the 1st of August to see the renewed, reinvigorated Sex Pistols with "guest" ( actually, probably permanent ) vocalist, Frank Carter.

This was a long overdue catch-up for me and my old friend Glenn ( Borrowed Time superstar ) and the third time we'd seen the Pistols together. The first time was at the short-lived Phoenix Festival waaay back in 1996, when the band ( with Lydon of course ) were an absolute revelation, while the second time we saw them, at Crystal Palace a few years later ( Lydon still hanging on, but wasting his time ) they were shockingly poor. I hadn't bothered to see any of their subsequent reunions, but this new lineup - with former Gallows frontman Carter on vocals  - looked interesting and we thought we'd give 'em enough rope. Sorry, wrong band...

After the usual tortuous drive into a grid-locked Cardiff, we headed for the Castle and got ourselves amongst the throng of old punks, many gamely sporting some hilarious haircuts - honestly what do these people do with their mohicans the rest of the year? We'd missed the first ( and youngest by a mile ) band of the day - local tearaways Panic Shack - but got there in time for the first round of Punk Karaoke with The Undertones. ( All of the three 1970s-vintage groups were performing without their original lead singer. I'm still not sure if I was breaking my self-imposed "no tribute bands" rule. Okay, it's more of a guideline than a rule. Sue me. )

 The 'tones, as I'm sure nobody calls them, were actually great fun. Their "new" singer didn't sound remotely like Feargal Sharkey but had a perfectly fine voice and a very bubbly, camp stage presence. The band have, of course, many classic punk-pop songs, most of which got an airing: it was good to hear My Perfect Cousin, Here Comes The Summer and the inevitable, inimitable Teenage Kicks, although I was hoping they'd play Wednesday Week, which they sadly didn't. 

Next up were The Stranglers, a band I never really liked, even with Hugh Cornwell in the lineup, and this incarnation ( with JJ Burnell being the only original member ) mostly left me cold. My fave Stranglers song, Duchess, sounded great and No More Heroes was, of course, a highlight. But then, if The Stranglers couldn't make a decent fist of that song, who could?

And then it was Anarchy time! Well, middle-aged anarchy with a side order of Sanatogen. The resounding power chords of Holidays In The Sun rang out across Cardiff as The Sex Pistols & Frank Carter took the stage by storm. Carter introduced the rest of the band and told us how privileged he was to be performing with his childhood heroes - Jonesy, Cooky and Matlocky. ( Okay, that last one doesn't really work. But, you know, anarchy and all that... )

After the dull, lazy and uninspiring show the Lydon-fronted band had put on back in 2002, this was a vast improvement. Carter ( aged 42 but looking 10 years younger ) adds a youthful vitality to the band, and he certainly seemed to inspire the others to raise their game. Matlock, as suave as ever, played with all the determination of a seasoned boxer, Jones belted out *those* huge guitar riffs with sleight-of-hand dexterity, and Cook... well, he was just extraordinary, keeping the beat and powering the engine of the band like a man half his age. Carter himself prowled the stage, baited the crowd, and sang his lungs out to those iconic songs, obviously having a whale of a time.

They played a relatively short set for a headlining band ( I really would have liked to hear Satellite or Did You No Wrong ) and the Carter-showcasing My Way was too cheesy for me, but otherwise they were excellent. All the fan-favourite Never Mind The Bollocks tracks like Bodies, No Feelings and Seventeen sounded sharp and powerful, while the Stooges cover, No Fun, was an epic of self-loathing with some monolithic guitar work by Steve Jones. The iconic singles, Pretty Vacant and God Save The Queen, may have dated in their details, but the anger and energy ( anger *is* an energy, right Johnny? ) still shine through and Carter was totally convincing in his take on these classic Punk texts. He isn't trying to be or sound like Lydon: he's his own man and he puts his own stamp on the material. And it sounds fantastic. 

They finished, of course, with Anarchy In The UK ( well, what else? ) and made thousands of old punks ( and the rest of us ) very happy. What a gig!

Hot Hot Hot! The Cure in Cardiff 24/06/26

In retrospect, it may have seemed an insane idea - stand in a field of 35,000 black-clad Goths on the hottest day of the year for three hours plus - but sometimes insane ideas can be the best ones. And when that idea involves watching The Cure, legendary New Wave / Goth / gloompop overlords, play a 28-song set of absolute classics, after not seeing them for 30 years, you just have to go with it and try not to melt...

In a very similar vein to the A-ha gig in Cardiff back in July 2022, this was a case of me encouraging Sarah to reconnect with a band she loved. We'd seen The Cure a few times back in the late '80s / early '90s and had both been big fans of the band, but had lost track of them in recent years. I think recently re-watching their triumphant Glastonbury set from 2019 and hearing their comeback album, Songs Of A Lost World, rekindled our fascination ( street! ) with Robert Smith and pals. I somehow managed to get a couple of last-minute tickets from the Ticketmaster Hegemony and we were Cardiff-bound! ( Not knowing at that time that the UK would be in the grip of its second blistering heatwave of the year in June. I'm now typing this in July, during the third blistering etc etc. )

We rocked up in Cardiff city and joined the throng of already sweating punters heading to Blackweir Fields. The venue was about a 10-minute walk from Cardiff Castle itself and, after hearing horror stories about previous gigs, we found the whole process of bag searches / ticket scanning to be relatively hassle-free. Which was nice. We'd missed first band The Joy Formidable, who had been on at the ridiculously early time of 15:15 pm, but I was determined to catch The Twilight Sad, so we headed towards the stage and the small amount of shade it afforded. ( Those two bands' names sound interchangeable to me: The Sad Formidable? The Twilight Joy? )

The Twilight Sad came on stage with very little fanfare and started an intense, emotional set with Dead Flowers - a song which sounds like Mogwai covering The Cure and features the phrase "it's water off a duck's back" - so, perfect really. The pounding drums and glacial synths nodded to the likes of Joy Division, while the guitars were turned up to ear-lacerating volumes, and singer James Graham's Scottish burr spread a gloomily passionate, soul-baring force field of melancholy over the crowd. I mean, they're probably great fun at parties, but here in Cardiff, The Twilight Sad were definitely living up to their name, and it sounded glorious. They finished with the monumental Waiting For The Phone Call, a song apparently about "grief, love and mental illness" which was paradoxically uplifting as Graham dug deep into himself for some sky-scraping vocals. Yep, they were intense alright, but a spot-on fit for a Cure support band ( that wasn't always the case, if anyone can remember the fey likes of Shelleyan Orphan... ) and they certainly gave the crowd all they had. I think I'd like to see them again in a smaller venue, where the sound would, I imagine, be like an aural avalanche.

By this time, the heat had reached an official temperature of 33 degrees C, although my phone was insisting it was 35 degrees. Thanks phone. We were now so hot we were spontaneously creating new sweat glands and giving them an instant workout - even our teeth were sweating. You get the picture, it was bloody hot. There'd been concern for a few days that the gig wouldn't go ahead - in fact many people said it shouldn't go ahead - but we were here, and we were all in it together. And then some sadist by the name of R. Smith decreed that the sound of pouring water and crashing thunder would issue from the PA as torrents of rain were depicted on the video screens. Talk about adding insult to injury. At least we knew that heralded the arrival of the headliners and, sure enough, out they came...

As the beautiful, hymn-like synths of Plainsong washed over the crowd, Robert Smith wandered around the stage, looking out at the 35,000 Goths dissolving into a sea of eyeliner, seemingly overwhelmed by the love that was radiating towards the stage. Simon Gallup's unmistakeable bass guitar chimed in with the spine of the song and it was like those 30 years were dissolving too. For us, and for so many fans, whether long-term or recent, it was like coming home, even if that home was a baking hot field in Wales. We were there, we'd made it, and so had The Cure...

The swaying, surging waves of Plainsong buoyed up the vocals of Captain Bob which seemingly hadn't changed one iota in all those years. As he sang about being as cold as the dead, the beauty in his voice - in his phrasing and delivery - was as magical as it had ever been, the paradox ( again ) of the warmth of Robert's voice melting the cold of the lyrics. I'd say "same as it ever was", but that was some other band. A brief "Thank you!" ( well, it's Robert Smith! ) and then the band kicked up the pace ( slightly ) with the New Order-goes-Goth of Pictures Of You, Smith strapping on his guitar and going head to head with the lanky figure of Gallup. This impossibly romantic song must have caused an ache in every heart there on that field: "If only I'd thought of the right words / I could have held on to your heart / If only I'd thought of the right words / I wouldn't be breaking apart all my pictures of you" - it's just a thing of dark beauty.

This set leaned heavily on my two favourite Cure albums, Disintegration and The Head On The Door, which was obviously fine by me. The bruised romanticism of  A Night Like This and the pitch black balladry of Lovesong ( "Fly me to the Moon" ) took us back to our twenty-something days of seeing The Cure in the cavernous spaces of Wembley Arena or the Birmingham NEC. Although the atmosphere was like a furnace, I think I prefer Blackweir Fields. The Last Day Of Summer from the later Bloodflowers album isn't a song I'm too familiar with, but it sounded absolutely epic only a few days past mid-summer. And it really wasn't the last day of Summer.

Following an early song in the set, Robert thanked the crowd in Welsh - "Diolch!" - which got a huge cheer from the Cardiff audience. He said "If there's one language I should have learned, it's Welsh, as I married into a Welsh family. Although, to be honest, sometimes it's best if I don't know what they're saying." ( I paraphrase, of course, but that's the gist of it. ) It's lovely to see the humorous, cheeky side to Robert, which does occasionally come out, and dispels all the stereotypes - you know: gloomy, morbid, depressing - about the band and singer.

A few unfamiliar songs ( to me, anyway ) were sprinkled throughout the set, but The Cure also pulled out classic after classic - there was a three-song run of Push / In Between Days / Just Like Heaven which was worth the price of admission on its own - and, when Gallup's iconic bass notes heralded the obligatory A Forest, the audience were transported to Goth Heaven. ( Which is probably a nightclub in Newport. ) We used to always jokingly complain about The Cure stretching out that song to impossible lengths but, after all this time it was wonderful to hear one of their most defining songs again. It really wouldn't be a Cure gig without an invitation to go "into the trees"...

They played From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea ( one of Sarah's faves, so she was very happy to hear it ) and then finished the main set with Prayers For Rain ( stop rubbing it in, Robert! ) and an epic Disintegration.

Another defining thing about the band back in the day was the way they'd often bugger off stage before the encores for a crowd-antagonisingly long time, presumably to get some serious drinking in. Here in the burning atmosphere of Blackweir Fields they were barely off stage long enough to neck a couple of shots before coming back out to a seismic roar from the knackered-but-ready-for-more crowd. And it was Hits Hits Hits! all the way...

Robert invoked the spooky spectre of the spider-man ( not that one ) as Lullaby cast its spell and its web over the field. Barely had we escaped the arachnid's clutches than the band started up the highly appropriate, funktastic Hot Hot Hot! Yes, we were, and it was. Even after hours on our collective blistering feet, the crowd still found the energy to shake our black-clad booties to this dancefloor detonation. 

After a Wild Mood Swings-era Wrong Number ( not a favourite, it has to be said ) the clattering drums and squelchy synths of The Walk gave way to the slinky, stealthy pop classic The Lovecats aka The One They Play On The Radio. This is the song that divides the fans between those who are too self-conscious to appreciate such a commercial outing for the band, and those who get it. Luckily, most of us did. There was a mass outbreak of joy, dancing and cat-ear-wearing as seen below. Gone, man, solid gone...

And the hits kept coming as The Cure reminded us just how many solid gold pop nuggets they've produced over the years: Let's Go To Bed and Friday I'm In Love were fun, singalong Top 40 anthems, while my favourite Cure song ever ever ever - Close To Me - was as claustrophobic and boggle-eyed as ever.

After a free-wheeling, funky Why Can't I Be You? the band dug back into their early years for the final song: the one that launched a thousand T-shirts and posters, the iconic Boys Don't Cry - a fantastic finish to a wonderful performance. A visibly moved Robert Smith thanked us all for being there and the feeling was indeed mutual. Everything about this gig had been excellent - the song choices, Robert's vocals, Simon's stick-insect stage moves, the sound and visuals, the band themselves ( including the legendary Reeves Gabrels on extra guitar ) and the multi-generational, massively appreciative audience. I hope I can speak for all of the 35,000 people there when I say we had a hugely enjoyable, emotional time, watching one of the greatest bands to ever walk the Earth and bravely wear Panda-eyed makeup in 33 degrees heat.

Thanks Robert, you were simply elegant.

Wychwood Festival 30/05/26

After missing it last year ( 2025, apparently ), Sarah and I were determined to get to the Wychwood Festival in this year they call 2026. ( Well, I was determined. Sarah was quite keen to go, I guess. ) After doing a couple of days last time, we could only manage the Saturday this year, which was a shame as there were bands on the other days ( Wedding Present, Everything Everything ) that I'd like to have seen... oh, well! Luckily, it was yet another beautiful Wychwoody day on the Saturday - pleasantly warm and sunny, just perfect for an outdoor gig.

After trekking down to the arena from the car park and having a quick nose around, Sarah went to join the first of many queues for the, er, comfort stations, while I caught my first band of the day on the Garden stage - the unfeasibly young and talented Underscore. They're a local band from the mean streets of Cheltenham ( not that mean, actually ) with a nice line in teen indie. Although their singer didn't have the most wide-ranging vocal abilities ( give 'em time! ) they were confident and melodic and certainly generated quite a buzz for a band playing in a tent at the ridiculously early time of 14:30 pm. 

( That's half past two to you. ) A good start to the day.

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.

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.

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.

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...