Lovely Days 2025 – Competition Assessment

Lovely Days 2025
Escot Park, Devon
Fifteenth-Seventeenth August 2025

Now in its twenty second yr, Lovely Days remains to be one of many few unbiased non-corporate occasions within the calendar and dances to its personal tune, with an excellent mixture of basic and leading edge new music, topped off by our hosts, Levellers, of their conventional Sunday night time slot.

I’m again within the fields for the annual fest and we’re reminiscing concerning the previous days earlier than the local weather disaster when festivals was once mud fests.  Within the shrieking sunshine, it’s change into a nostalgia for a mud bathtub that will by no means come once more because the very non-British backdrop of limitless sunshine and conversations about solar tan lotion dominate the summer season discourse. 

In Friday’s fierce warmth, we kick off with The Dreadlians, a ragamuffin crew of Irish lads from Dublin who, someway, of their poetically ramshackle genius, mix Irish trad with psychedelic guitars. It’s an excellent and enthralling mixture that dips deep into the everlasting drone of each types of music and takes you on an actual journey that you could dance to.

Subsequent up, Millie Manders and The Shutup have cemented their place as pageant faves with their high-energy set of Twenty first century punk rock that sees the charismatic stay wire of Millie conduct her band and the massive crowd into high-energy, ecstatic shapes. Armed with brief sharp catchy shocks of songs that mix a humour and an empowering message into an exhilarating complete, they make punk rock politics partaking and a message you possibly can transfer to.

Misty In Roots are Brit reggae basic masters and work on their very own phrases and in their very own time zone. The Roots collective simply appear to drift by the backstage and onto the stage, someway morphing from line test to bass-heavy dub groove gig mode, while conducting the bass knives to the treble and cranking the heavy backside finish like they’re conductors of one thing historic and highly effective. The band have been round many years and exude the veteran cool with candy vocals and their USP basic keyboard sound including actual color and flavours to their basic groove. 

The stage quantity and power is now cranked up for one more gang of vets with Terrorvision who’re constructed to entertain, and their old style hello wattage by no means dims. The band run the stage ragged and sweatshod of their posh fits, like a Bradford cranked model of Rod Stewart’s Faces once they had been one of many best rock ‘n’ roll bands on the earth.

The Mary Wallopers have had a few intensely busy years of continuous touring with 200 gigs worldwide a yr, and their trad Irish with an added Twenty first century ruckus is a potent reminder of the poetic prospects of the types. The core brothers, Charles and Andrew Hendy, change vocals and drive the Dundalk-birthed band together with their songs of affection and fury that change from celtic bonhomie and thrilling insanity to the stark and sparse bodhran, plus vocals tunes that maintain the 1000’s robust viewers in a spell. The band are one more instance of the power in depth of the present Irish scene that underlines the potent energy of the Emerald Isle, which is main the best way in the mean time with all manor of musics.

Headliners, Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls are as sturdy bonhomie as ever, with the exhausting working singer cranking his band by a excessive octane set of songs that replace the folk-tinged punk for the brand new now, and make the eloquent Frank some type of spokesperson for the music scene.  By some means, I additionally handle to scorching foot over to the opposite stage and catch Pete Doherty delivering an effortlessly sensible present that someway combines his love of music corridor, trad jazz, punk rock and indie basic into set that showcases his present Felt Higher Alive album. Just like the album, the gig is as gloriously off kilter and eccentric as its poetry in movement and is backed up by an excellent band pushed by Welsh maverick guitarist Jack Jones, whose personal band Trampoline are additionally on target to make far more noise within the subsequent yr. Pete Doherty’s musical journey has been certainly one of chaos however he appears to have grabbed victory from the jaws of defeat, and for as soon as we get to rejoice his music and lyrics and imaginative and prescient of England that’s extra John Betjeman and George Formby, with a splash of old style Morrissey, than drug droog nihilism. 

Saturday is scorching, dusty and able to go together with younger Liverpool band The Kairos speeding the stage at 11 within the morning with the freak beat supernova at full tilt. They’re in that basic Liverpool rock ‘n’ roll type of bands like The Stairs combined with the town’s everlasting lad rock heritage that mixes a heady combination of fierce melodies and exuberant Sixties riffola cranked for the now. Just one factor is for certain – they gained’t be the opening band at these occasions for lengthy.

Girlband! are at all times a pleasure with their emotive rollercoaster songs that stroll the tightrope between nice radio rock ‘n’ roll and a publish punk edge. As ever, the highly effective vocals ship the songs, and their enormous choruses and their efficiency connects immediately with the viewers with advert hoc participation and connection and celebration. Elsewhere, Bar Stool Preachers have blown out their slot due to half the band being laid low by a nasty dose of covid caught on the earlier week’s Revolt pageant, so native dub and reggae crew Barefoot Bandits step in and make their first important stage look look easy with their reggae-fused ooze. 

The excessive voltage returns with the thrilling rush of Panic Shack, whose brief sharp shock songs are primed Twenty first-century punk rock. The missives are filled with nice hooks and a caustic wit that makes a political level with thrilling riffing and a caustic punk rock rush. They’ve nice choreographed stage strikes and are nice enjoyable, however don’t shrink back from the causes of those instances. Child Kapichi have come a good distance since these early hows I reviewed by them in Hastings for Louder Than Warfare a decade in the past. Reinvigorated by a brand new line up, they carry an urgency to their vibrant energetic rush and the sharp dressed dudes are nonetheless a pointy sounding band.

It’s been a very long time since I caught Sleeper (a band I used to be as soon as bizarrely requested to provide of their very early days) and the reformed band do an excellent job of dusting down their indie basic that noticed them as million sellers within the Britpop interval. They nonetheless look the half, and their set is a reminder of how efficient the angular riffs of Inbetweener and Sale Of The Century someway sound timeless of their pared down perfection and indie disco grooves. Their nice model of Blondie’s Atomic from the Trainspotting soundtrack retains that music’s swooping and glacial rush, which is not any imply feat.

Resplendent in an X Ray Spex T shirt as a reminder of the nice guitar work he did on the band’s lengthy misplaced second  Acutely aware Shopper album, Kula Shaker’s Crispin Mills remains to be an brisk frontman and effortlessly nice psych pop guitarist, who leads his band by a good and highly effective set of psychedelic pop classics that hit the candy spot of regency undergound 1967, when pop was infused with tripped out pop melodies and a trance continental embrace of Indian mysticism. It’s a flashback to a time when individuals nonetheless believed that top decibel guitars may change the world and defy the suffocating claustrophobia of draconian rule. 

Persevering with the celebration of the plethora of bands who had been additionally an enormous a part of publish Britpop/Oasis interval, Shed 7 are right here to rejoice having two primary albums final yr that caught the music biz out with an excellent hovering rock ‘n’ roll present. At all times a much better group than the commentators would have you ever consider, Shed 7 are the last word individuals’s band and have opened up the album charts to a complete new era of northern guitar bands who construct up large followings with out anybody’s permission. Rick Witter nonetheless has an excellent voice, and the Smiths affect that was at all times there, from the primary time I noticed them play to a handful of individuals at Manchester In The Metropolis in 1993, is underlined with an excellent cowl of the a lot beloved Manc outfit.

The stage is now set for one of many few bands who may declare to have genuinely modified every thing – the Intercourse Pistols. A lot has been stated concerning the new line up, however Frank Carter is a good frontman IN HIS OWN RIGHT. This isn’t about both/or, that is concerning the now. These songs have to be heard, and the highlight must be on Matlock, Cook dinner and Jones, who’re three of the greats and when mixed are nonetheless incendiary at practically 70 years previous. The three of them create a thundering avalanche of sound, with Steve Jones’ a lot talked about guitar tsunami nonetheless a uncooked energy thrill combining his imaginative guitar licks and slabs of sound into a really idiosyncratic thrilling brawl of noise. Glen Matlock is the melody king and songwriter and his bass traces make an actual distinction, while watching Paul Cook dinner sideways on from ten ft away is an expertise – his powerhouse drums are stuffed with tight rolls and rhythmic complexities that drive the songs ahead in a surprising show of energy. Each music is knitted into the DNA of a era and each era after, and the Pistols are certainly one of a handful of bands that modified the world and we’re right here to rejoice that – they deserve this lap of honour and we deserve to listen to it.  

Sunday begins off with much more blistering warmth than Friday which, for a Brit who goes to quite a lot of festivals, is a good and strange expertise.

First band on is the ever glorious Grandma’s Home, whose uncooked confessional guitar, bass, and drums are as fascinating and provoking as ever. They make a really nice sound, with their search and destroy guitar locking in with the powerhouse rhythm part for singer/guitar participant Yasmin Berndt’s uncooked highly effective vocals to ship her emotive slices of ardour. A part of the ever ingenious and ahead considering publish IDLES Bristol scene, the band personify all the journey of publish punk within the metropolis.

From the identical locale, Heavy Lungs are a metallic KO of flailing, twitching, propulsive thrill of visceral noise and filling riff mayhem. Their stay present is cranked and goes into the hazard zone after which into the realms of the bodily past. Fellow travellers with fellow Bristol droids, IDLES, their frontman Danny Nedelko was propelled to fame by the music written about him, they usually share the identical picked up off the bed room flooring wardrobe and excessive power helter skelter musical brawl and are totally compulsive viewing. The frantic frenetic guitar daggers and bass spleen that was key within the lengthy misplaced historic scene of dying to trad rock bands make extra sense now than ever. They appear to be they stay inside these riffs and in a chaotic world of concepts and defiant dysfunction that’s nailed to a pile driver groove that ignites the pit. It’s a flaming, burning and thrilling stay present that may be a get up name and sonic sensory overload. 

The great thing about Lovely Days is the eclectic nature of the payments and an viewers that’s ready to go from the gonzoid noise thrill of Heavy Lungs to the brilliantly tough to pin down Younger Knives, whose neo prog adventures someway cram themselves into off kilter, nearly indie, pop songs, and are stuffed with a darkish jester quirky power. The band even appear to be what they sound like with, a combination of popular culture wardrobe from a Hawkwind-style rocker from hell to a brothel creeper’d up easy operator. It’s an explosion of types with a music to match and unpack. 

The Meffs are very a lot the breakout band of the second, with their T-shirt second solely to Levellers as probably the most worn merchandise of merch within the pageant fields, in line with our informal survey of wandering about. The duo are on peak type, and the fixed touring and helps within the UK and in Europe sees the band proudly owning the stage and their very own music. Singer Lily Hopkins has the real X issue factor – that sense of connection that owns everybody’s eyeballs and sparks the gang into enormous mosh pits and all variations of punk rock excessive power mosh strikes, earlier than diving off the stage and becoming a member of in. She can be an excellent guitar participant who fills the songs along with her caustic six string thrills, and locks in with drummer Lewis Copsey for good slices of punk-infused music that they very a lot make their very own.

When you needed to invent a band to play Lovely Days, then Mad Canine McRae could be an ideal match. Grafting it up over from the foothills of the smaller levels to those highlight important stage spots, their combination of from the soil of the land folks and a punky urgency with a dose of basic songwriting creates a righteous ruckus and a great mid afternoon knees up for his or her lyrical songs and tales. The violin creates a fluid melodicism, and the Mad Canine himself has a voice stained with pubs and a life effectively lived, digging right into a deep custom of musical story telling and magical mummers.

Again within the Britpop wars The Bluetones had been a flash of success, with enormous hit singles and a primary album of their shimmering tremendous melodic anthems. They had been the suburban southern Stone Roses and wrote good songs in that mode. As we speak, its a mixture of deeper cuts and songs that stand the take a look at of time like Slight Return, which remains to be as coronary heart melting quicksilver as ever and an excellent emotive slice of way back youth. Not that the band, who remarkably have the identical line up, are simply best hits, with the newer songs showcasing a basic guitar pop nous that also must be celebrated extra. 

From the identical time zone however on the different finish of the dimensions Remedy? are, as ever, an exhilarating darkish clad blast of bass-driven, pyrotechnic, drum thrills for Andy Cairns’ good mixture of publish punk and steel guitars to pioneer the rock crossover into the darker corners of the underground. The band by no means went away, and fixed touring has seen them hone their darkish power right into a compulsive and thrilling machine. It is a band that dares to cowl Pleasure Division’s Isolation, or spiral into the extreme small city claustrophobia of Large Black, after which come up the floor with nice pop bangers like Going Nowhere that underlined their excessive decibel presence within the Britpop days, not as combatants in that scene however darkish lord outliers who, just like the Prodigy, may cross over into the brand new scene and nonetheless stay on their very own trajectory the place they defiantly ship from all these many years later.

Weaving their lysergic magnificence, Spiritualised stay an elusive and mysterious immersive genius. Jason Pearce leads the band by smouldering superb songs that ebb and circulate with fragile splendour that embrace euphoria and introspection. They don’t seem to be right here to smash and seize a mosh pit, however as a substitute draw you into their world with layers of sound given a silver lining by their three-piece choir’s emotive choral layers. 

It’s Levellers‘ social gathering, they usually finish the weekend with their conventional curtain nearer that mixes their anthemic hits with deeper cuts. Perhaps much less of the stonking anthems on this yr’s set, the quieter songs are nearly reflective and as highly effective and maintain their merry throng in a thrall. Many years in and they’re nearly as trad because the music that half impressed them within the first place, and that’s a great factor because the dysfunctional brotherhood rejoice their again pages and their very own pageant at an fascinating junction of their profession. It’s coming as much as their fortieth anniversary, and the historical past must be informed in all its other ways to clear the decks for one more assertion of the now. The many years add a gravitas to those type of bands, and their voices, whether or not in or out of focus, must heard creating concord in these chaotic instances, in addition to ship the songs that resonate and encourage individuals.

~

All phrases by John Robb.