Our second day at Wychwood 2024 saw us up bright and early and back at Cheltenham Racecourse for 11:00 am to see the undeniable star of the weekend, in his own words "TV celebrity... and meme", the amazing Hacker T Dog!
Our kids grew up watching Hacker's antics on CBBC, so we remember the character fondly, and now he's gained popularity through the
"Normal men" video clip / meme from 2016 showing Hacker and presenter Lauren Layfield cracking up whilst attempting a continuity link. Hacker's creator / puppeteer Phil Fletcher now takes his manic mutt on tour, singing, DJ-ing and, of course, chanting out "We're just normal men" as often as humanly or canine-ly possible. Aided and abetted by actual DJ Katie Thistleton, Hacker got the early morning Wychwood crowd festival-ready by singing old kids' TV themes, telling daft jokes and generally larking about it. It was great, great fun.
And after the show Phil came down from the stage to meet the fans and take selfies. He gave everybody his time and was very gracious and friendly, and we chatted with Katie who was also lovely. Here's an overjoyed Sarah meeting Hacker and Phil. The nominal Sunday headliners were Dad-rock bores Ocean Colour Scene but, for sheer entertainment value and rock 'n' roll spirit, Hacker beat them hands ( or paws ) down.
"Y'alright cockers!"
The first music act of the day we saw was local lad Crispin ( no surname required ) who produced a family-friendly, ballad-heavy type of pop. Inoffensive and tuneful but forgettable.
We went for another wander and took in the sights of the festival. It was a much hotter day than Saturday but we found a few places we could duck inside and chill out.
In the early afternoon we watched
Thrill Collins, an acoustic covers band who do revved-up, comedy takes on big pop and rock tunes. They went down a treat with the festival crowd and were obviously good at what they do... but, when they started playing Hotel bloody California we had to move on.
Next on the agenda were
The Futureheads, indie rockers best known for their cover of Kate Bush's immortal Hounds Of Love. I went down the front to catch half of their set and was impressed with their propulsive guitar pop, and wished I'd seen more of them. A bloke next to me said "They're a bit bloody good, aren't they?" - and they were. They, of course, finished with Hounds and it was a delight.
Over on the Garden Stage I caught one of the youngest bands of the weekend and certainly the loudest:
Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard ( you'd think one bird of prey would be enough )
This Welsh alt-metal ( probably? ) four-piece were incredibly loud and heavy, throwing all kinds of bludgeoning riffs, tempos and time-changes into their pummelling set. Frontman Tom Rees is engagingly odd, like Tom Verlaine fed a diet of raw meat and cocaine, and the whole band are incredibly accomplished for such spring chickens... sorry, buzzards. Definitely a band to watch out for.
Sarah had been looking round the stalls while I was watching Buzzard x3 ( and having my ear drums destroyed ), and then we got back together to see indie pop legends
The Lightning Seeds on the main stage.
Ian Broudie and co. were, to my mind anyway, far more deserving of the headliner slot than OCS. The Liverpudlians' gorgeous melodies and hooky hooks were perfect for a warm early Summer evening in a field. Pop banger after pop banger rocketed over the crowd: Change, Sugar Coated Iceberg and Sense were all kinds of jangly goodness and induced mass outbreaks of positive vibes and jollification. ( I'm not sure if that's a real word, but it's certainly a Lightning Seeds album title. ) "Oh, lucky you" indeed.
After a gorgeous Life Of Riley, the inevitable Three Lions roared into life, with Broudie asking the crowd if they thought "it" ( ie a win for England in the Euros ) was possible this year. Of course, most people seemed to think it was possible and bellowed along to the "It's coming home" chant. And, also of course, it turned out later that it didn't come home. Never mind - the Lightning Seeds' optimism, no matter how misplaced, is always a welcome thing in these troubled times.
We literally caught two of
Seasick Steve's songs. Although I can appreciate his hobo blues / rock, it really isn't my cup of tea, nor Sarah's. He went down a storm with those who do like it, though. Which was nice. But, anyway, we had an appointment at the Garden Stage with some ( not so ) new soul rebels:
Apart from Hacker ( who relentlessly bigged-up the below act during his set ), my main reason for attending Wychwood on the Sunday was to see the legendary Dexy's ( without the Midnight Runners nowadays lol )
The only time I'd seen Dexy's previously was way back in 2013 at the Gloucester Guildhall. This had been my first gig back after my cancer treatment and it was a very special, emotional experience. I wasn't sure how this gig and this Dexy's lineup would compare. ( Of course, Dexy's in the 21st century basically comprises of Kevin Rowland and any musician he hasn't fallen out with. )
We got into the Garden Stage tent fairly early and grabbed a decent spot near the front. Sarah had been surprised that a band of Dexy's status were playing on the smaller stage, but I personally couldn't imagine them on the main stage. The theatricality and uniqueness of the Dexy's performance needs to be seen up close.
The band came out onto the stage and started playing the old Bee Gees standard, To Love Somebody, and then "good old Kevin" appeared and instantly commanded the attention of the crowd. The choice of opening song may have seemed strange, considering how much of a back catalogue the band has to draw on, but they've always been astute in their choice of covers, and Kevin absolutely owned this song. Looking quite thin these days, but immaculate in his multi-coloured zoot suit, his voice was however still a thing of beauty, the deep, rich tones and soulful high notes as powerful as ever.
The band then barrelled into first album classic Tell Me When My Light Turns Green, the horn section blasting out the immaculate riff to the delight of the long-time fans. Midway through the set, Dexy's dropped a couple of "the hits" - Geno and Jackie Wilson Said - and everybody by this point was dancing and singing and strutting their funky stuff ( technical term ). The last time I saw the band, they'd played Geno in a Calypso style, which had been fun, but this was a return to the original arrangement and it had that down 'n' dirty Stax oomph to it, and was just outstanding.
Lengthy takes on Until I Believe In My Soul ( yay! ) and the more recent Free saw Kevin indulging his more soul-searching, theatrical side as he recalled the bad old '80s days of punishing his body to believe in his soul, and his yearning to be free of relationships, of band members, of whatever else had plagued him. The set sometimes felt like a confessional or a therapy session for a ( formerly? ) troubled artist, and often these
longeurs stretched on almost to the point where they became tiresome. Almost, but not quite, as Kevin injected self-deprecating humour and the band injected raw soul power into these songs just when needed. And then the fiddle-player limbered up and it was time for Eileen to come out to play. Come On Eileen had been noticeable by its absence last time but, in 2024, it seems that Kevin has come to terms with the monster hit single that defined the band for so many casual observers, and has brought it back in all its foot-stomping glory. He also seems to have come to terms with past mistakes and spoke briefly, but movingly, about Al Archer, the former bandmate who had done so much to build the Dexy's sound but had fallen foul of Rowland's "new soul vision" in one of the turbulent lineup changes.
They finished with a stunning version of This Is What She's Like, the epic attempt to define feelings for that special someone, an attempt that will always fail because love is too huge a thing for a mere song to quantify. But Kevin always tries. He believes the Italian's have a word for it. Like a thunderbolt or something...
As you can guess, I was absolutely knocked out by this performance. Dexy's have meant so much to me over the years and I was so happy that they still had that Celtic Soul magic, and their singer was still the unique, passionate, occasionally frustrating, always stylish, frontman who has been pouring his soul out for so many years for our entertainment. Cheers, Kev!
After this, we went for yet another mooch around the arena and caught the tail end of an uninspiring set by headliners Ocean Colour Scene. We could hear them, being all bombastic and obvious, and decided we weren't going to investigate too closely. They finished with The Day We Caught The Train, but we weren't going to take a train ( or a car ) out of Wychwood that quickly, because we were heading for the late night Silent Disco..
I'd never really understood the concept or appeal of silent discos previously, but we'd seen this after-hours ritual taking place last year and thought it looked like fun. The set up is this: two DJs play two completely different sets and the punters are given noise-cancelling headphones, which can be tuned into Red or Blue channels for either DJ. You can flip from one to the other at will, so if you're thinking the dancers freaking out to the Blue channel are having more fun than your Red cohorts, you can join in with them. Of course, you can also take the headphones off and watch people seemingly dancing and singing tunelessly to no music, which is worth a chuckle.
As it was, the Blue DJ was playing a lot of house, jungle and trance ( which I mostly went for ) and Red was laying down a lot more pop-orientated stuff ( which Sarah mostly went for ), but we mixed and matched as we went along. After two days on our feet, watching bands, you'd think we'd be too knackered for all this, but we found extra strength ( somehow! ) and danced our feet off until 01:00 am - party animals! It was a great laugh and we'll definitely have to do it again.
After a walk through an eerily deserted festival site to find a hideous chemical toilet ( ugh! ), we headed for home, worn out but happy. Same time again next year, Wychwood? ( I think so. )
