Finally the festival season for 2025 is underway and that only meant one thing for me, Bearded Theory baby!
Based at Catton Hall in Derbyshire (the same location as Bloodstock) Bearded is a 15k capacity festival set in wonderful surroundings where once you’re in, you’re in like Glastonbury is, none of the bollocks where you can’t take your own food or drink into the arena – it’s up to you if you want to support the food and drink vendors and with an excellent selection of both available at very reasonable prices for a festival you would be mad not to sample some of the delights.
Now I’m no stranger to BT, I’ve been coming to every one of them since 2009 and during that time it has seen some changes, the capacity has increased and it is no longer run independently as DHP Family (of Nottingham’s Rock City fame) became involved during the pandemic to ensure the festival survived then took over the complete running of it afterwards so naturally as the festival evolved into a more corporate way of doing things then the festival would surely suffer right? Well the answer is yes, well no, well kinda…
Much of the original ethos remains, the festival is seen as one for the “alternative” amongst the population, it’s a place where punks mix with ravers, hippies meet up with metalheads and families swap stories with reprobates, there really isn’t many other festivals of this size offering what it does and that includes the bands so with no further dilly dallying let’s move on.
Thursday.
Now officially Bearded Theory starts on a Wednesday but as I run a business Thursday is the earliest I can make it so it’s a 5am alarm clock, the car is already 95% packed and we’re away just after 6am heading down south with a quick stop off for a Maccies breakfast
and a quick charge of the car before were off down the A38 heading towards Catton, just outside Burton Upon Trent. The drive in is spectacular in its lack of delays, I have no traffic line to follow and I’m straight into the production office area to pick up my passes and wristbands. With still no delays it’s back in the car and up the road to the carpark where again there’s no waiting and minutes later we’re out of the car once more and loading the trolley up.
Our luck continues as there’s not even a queue at the entrance gate, not that it matters too much as we already had our wristbands so it’s straight through security and off to find a pitch and before lunchtime we’re set up with an ice cold cider in hand and planning the day.
The Meffs
One thing that struck me going back and forth from the carpark was the amount of Meffs merch people had about themselves so they were 100% going to be our 1st port of call. A few technology issues ensued at the side of the pit with my Insta360 cameras made the start of my 1st proper tog assignment something of an headache.
Serves me right for not checking everything over prior but after a few minutes I could relax in the sun and start enjoying their set which included Stand Up, Speak Out, the explosive version of Prodigy’s Breathe apparently they are known for on the live circuit, Deathwish and Clowns. The Pallet is quite a large stage but for a two piece band they completely filled it!
Molotov Jukebox
Another new band to me and after a somewhat frought sound check that ran into their run time it didn’t take long for this Jazzy 6 piece to get the crowd dancing to a soundtrack perfect to listen to in a field bathed in sunshine.
Fat Dog
It would seem I am forever jinxed when it comes to Fat Dog, 1st time I was supposed to see them I was infected with Covid, 2nd was the fault of shocking weather, 3rd chance was a clash I couldn’t get out of
so I thought the 4th attempt trying to see the band was absolutely nailed on but the gods had other ideas… Just as Joe jumps down to the barrier to fire up the crowd that was already frenzied off the back of King Of The Slugs to take them to an even higher level with Running he noticed a member of the crowd was in difficulties and immediately stopped the performance and called over the medics and security.
The set was then delayed for 25 mins while the poor lad was being dealt with, the front barrier that was opened up to let the paramedics through was made secure again and everyone was back in place before returning with an obviously much shorter set that still got the crowd bouncing like lunatics on day release.
It may have been a short taster of Fat Dog but it’s left me so much hungrier for more and I hope the lad has made a full recovery and managed to return to the festival.
English Teacher
Another band I seem to strike unlucky with is English Teacher, Last year they were on the billing mid afternoon on the Sunday at BT but with the festival already an absolute mud bath after weeks of torrential rain we decided to get the hell out of dodge as the heavens began to open once more just before their set was due to start.
Performance wise they were faultless as I had expected, a chilled out way to finish off the 1st “full” day of the festival (ok not all stages are open yet but it’s got that vibe now Wednesday is an optional set up day) and it’s perfectly obvious how and why their growth has been substantial and the headline spot given but the old punk in me would have definitely preferred the top 2 acts in reverse, Fat Dog closing would have just been an incredible end to the opening evening of the main stage.
Friday
Another stonking day ahead weather wise was had and the only nightmare was, with such an amazing line up deciding which of the bands I was going to get to because of all the clashes!
GirllBand
Local(ish) act GirlBand got the privilege to open the main stage on the official opening of the full festival, already BBC 6Music favourites they drew a massive crowd for an opener which goes to show their reputation already exceeds them and what a perfect start to the day as they absolutely nailed their set with songs that included 21st Century Suffragette, Talk Me Down and Not Like The Rest as well as a riseable cover of T-Rex’s Hot Love.
The Vaselines
Formed in Glasgow many many moons ago but with a very American Alt rockers sound it was amazing to see The Vaselines can still draw the crowds and with good reason, hailing from the classic era of rock with some incredible tunes in their arsonal such as Son Of A Gun, Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam, Molly’s Lips and Slushy all present and correct in the set it was a bit of a one off the bucket list of classic acts I’ve never seen live but wanted to, made especially special as this is their only festival appearance this year so something of a prize catch for BT.
Déjà Vega.
Nothing about these guys is new to me and probably anyone who is a regular RGM reader, pod listener or watcher and if you’re not already onboard then I suggest giving them a go, solid tunes that cover many genres, indie, electronic, dance there’s something in there for everyone and their Manchester gigs are already something of legendary status as they have been stepping up through the ranks at them.
Du Blonde
Another debut that’s been on my to see list quite recently and I have to say I was far from disappointed, Beth Jean Haughton deserves all the acclaim and recommendations from people in the know who live the live circuit are saying about her and the girls who formed her band were perfect.
Oh and she doesn’t look as scary in real life either, in fact she was quite the sweetheart to the girls playing with her.
Neds Atomic Dustbin
Another one ticked off the must see bucket list, 80’s alternative rockers are back with all 5 original members and they’ve lost none of their power. Jonn’s vocals haven’t changed over the years and the Black Country boys ripped up their set like it was 40 years ago, they might have been lost on the younger audience members but the old punks & rockers clapped and bounced away like their knees were still called the left and right one and not their bad one and the dicky other like they do today, indeed bassist Mat Cheslin later gave some safety advice to the mosh pit below, “Check your cholesterol and if pissing becomes hard, see your doctor!”…
The Slow Readers Club
Absolutely no way I can be impartial with these boys, they have become a part of life for me as they have with so many others and I’ve met so many of my gig friends from this group’s fanbase. Hit hard after going full time just before the pandemic and forced pretty much during to restart their previous careers and go back to being part time musicians again as they had families to support it was a delight to see a Meadow Tent so busy especially as their previous visit was on the Woodlands stage back in 2019 and they were also playing nearer to hometown Manchester at Neighbourhood the same weekend where their biggest fanbase is.
The crowd responded incredibly well to the new stuff off Out Of A Dream especially to Boy So Blue’s danceability which seemed to catch the casuals as much as the old songs from Cavalcade et al.
Yard Act
Another band returned to BT but this time as penultimate headliners after a rapturous response to their previous visit to the Pallet stage just a couple of years ago. Yard Act are another band whose rise over the past few years have been pretty mind blowing but with their arsenal of songs hardly surprising not to mention James Smith’s sharp wit both on stage and in lyric “Do you think it’s stupid or arrogant for a band to play a new song at a festival? Well I’m both so here’s a new one..”. Another stonking performance ensured those down the front were kept busy throughout the set.
Paul Heaton and Rianne Downey
I first saw Rianne perform at Night At The Museum in Blackburn just 2 years ago where this tiny meek little girl stepped up on stage barely able to look at the audience of just 100 because of nerves until she started singing and when she did it was one of those “holy shit!” moments.
What came forth was nothing short of stunning so when it became clear that Jackie Abbott was going to be out for some time that when Paul got passed a video of her covering Rotterdam it came as no surprise that she was his number one target to help step in and from that point the rest is history, indeed it’s a pinch yourself situation watching her in front of 10,000 people performing like she’s been doing it for decades not months.
If anyone could get this out of her then surely there’s nobody better than to be on stage with Paul Heaton and his back catalogue of absolute belters, and the selection that was being fired out at us was strong enough for myself to totally lose track of time and miss my chance to get up and shoot Sisters Of Mercy.
By the time I looked at my watch I had just minutes to spare to get across the festival and being stood directly in front of the sound stage with several thousand to my left and several more to my right I just accepted my fate and enjoyed the pair with the band right to the end, a not inconsiderate two dozen songs in total!
Saturday
It was a little cooler today, the forecast originally said to expect rain for most of the day but although it was cloudy for most of the day thankfully the expected rain turned into the occasional bit of drizzle and the heavens didn’t actually open up until nearly midnight
Lovely Eggs
It was up to Dave & Holly to get things started on the saturday and a surprising number of people had made it down the front early, was it in hope of Iggy joining them on stage to do I, Moron together (which sadly didn’t happen) or the just sheer craziness of one of their gigs we can only guess but their 30 min set flew by in a flash as the Middle Aged Crowd Surfers as Holly called the crowd lapped up the likes of Magic Onion, Wiggy Giggy, Fuck It and my personal fav, Don’t Look At Me.
Terrorvision
I have a confession, Even though I have spent pretty much the majority of my life either living or working around Bradford, it was probably around 25 years since I last saw Bradford boys Terrorvision perform. I’m not quite sure how that has happened as I genuinely loved their early albums but they’re currently having a bit of a resurgence right now and after this performance it’s not surprising – 90’s Alt Rock at it’s finest.
Indeed their style of music laid the path to 2020’s bands such as The Reytons, Yard Act etc etc, and I’ll say this, if Yard Act and Terrorvision swapped songs how long would it take for someone to notice? Come at me if you think differently and I’ll show you how wrong you are and the band walking off to the theme tune of the Bond movie, The Spy Who Loved me, Carly Simon’s Nobody Does It Better, they quite possibly were correct….
Mannequin Pussy
LA band Mannequin Pussy brought their anger against online abuse against women and trans in a fucking delightfully hard hitting powerful performance, unafraid to say things how they see it and indeed how currently it is for many they didn’t hold back much to the delight of the crowd. If you think Amil & The Sniffers are holding back then this band is for you and if Donald Trump was pissed at The Boss for what he said about him, he’d be enraged at Mannequin Pussy about their views on Trump’s America, fucking loved em!
NovaTwins
Yet another band where the gods of clashes have constantly toyed with me, this time I was making certain I would finally catch them even though it would mean missing Stewart Lee’s set in the Woodlands and all I can say is just two words, fucking amazing! It’s absolutely no surprise that these two little powerhouses have over one million monthly listeners on Spotify now, their take on rock has won them well deserved awards and their performance on the Pallett completely backed that up – damn you clashes, I should have witnessed this many times earlier!
She Drew The Gun
Another one I must profess my love of, Louisa Roach really can do no wrong in my eyes regardless of whether performing solo, as a duo or full band doing her songs, spoken word or a combination of the two, her ability to mix up genres keeps everything fresh and the size of the crowd in a now wet Woodlands was testament to her popularity.
Iggy Pop
This one was the ultimate icing on the cake when added to the line up list that meant there was absolutely no way I was going to miss BT, If I wasn’t on the press list I would have immediately bought a pair of tickets, it never fails to astound me how BT manages to pull at least one unbelievable alternative superstar headliner out of the bag and getting the godfather of punk must surely rank as one of the biggest catches to date! Iggy’s influence of the alternative scene is like no other, with a career spanning over 50 years he truly is rock royalty and even at the ripe old age of 78 he is showing no sign of giving up anytime soon going by the nights performance .
At his age he deserves the right just to dial in a performance and I doubt anyone would hold that against him but that simply isn’t Iggy’s style, the amount of effort he put into his performance would embarrass many bands coming though who are a quarter of his age, always moving, always engaging with the crowd and/or band and giving a vocal performance that quite frankly nobody his age should still be able to do was simply mind-blowing! It came as no surprise that I learnt he was stretchered off the stage afterwards, I barely had any energy left just watching him, this was one performance that will forever live in my memory.
Sunday
The Sun was back albeit with quite a breeze but thankfully the overnight rain had helped stop the dust blowing everywhere. I treated myself to a delayed start as the bones were starting to feel it now but there was one band that was making sure I was down in the arena for 1pm and that was…
Slay Duggee
Lammo’s evening show on 6music 1st introduced me to Slay Duggee, a band that may sound and dress similar to a certain children’s cartoon but I’m sure that is purely coincidental… now let’s just say I didn’t think I’d start the Sunday listening to a thrash metal version of SpongeBob Square Pants but when I saw they were on the billing they weren’t getting missed!
Think Circle Pits to Round & Round The Garden, humour that kids get and stuff that goes completely over their heads for the adults. It was an absolute joy to see kids completely lose their shit to metal, these guys may be a bit of a novelty act but they are masters of their craft and for that I salute them, their set ended up being my highlight of the weekend and everybody needs a thrash metal version of the Stick song in their lives!
Divorce
After the absolute mental-ness of Slay Duggee it’s was time to chill out a little and Divorce provided a most excellent soundtrack to a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon (once you got out of the wind) plenty of folk sleeping or shaking off their Saturday party hangovers, some suffering more than others but after the performance from Iggy last night it’s understandable.
Divorce is one of the current darlings of the Indie radio stations currently and it’s easy to understand why, fantastic complimentary vocals, wistful tunes and airing just on the right side away from Pop. On a side note it was fantastic to see vocalist Tiger Cohen-Towell agree to sign a young fans book during sound check and for the front of house security escorting her to the front of stage, its moments like this that turn youngsters into the next generation of music lovers.
Nadine Shah
Bringing her own unique style of music, somewhat tribal with her vocals, often humorous with words, she’s always worked her own way, carving out her particular style that’s finally paying off and getting the recognition it deserves. Live, she is an absolute powerhouse and put in a vocal performance that didn’t disappoint the large crowd and appeared to have finally awoken those from their respective hangovers. If you managed to sleep through that powerhouse performance then you have my absolute utmost respect for your abilities…
The Selecter
The Band might only have Pauline Black and Aitch as original members but the ethos of the band hasn’t changed and the music still sounds as glorious to me as it did back in the day while at secondary school, which pretty much ages me old! However, whilst Pauline is still somehow as stunning as ever, I appear to be aging as well as a well used teabag so I have no idea what has happened here… Thankfully the tunes are aging like her and not me too and remain pretty timeless.
The Lottery Winners
2019 in the Woodlands was my first ever TLW gig, we just happened to be in there when I checked who was due on next and I remembered someone mentioned them to me as something different but in a good way so we hung around to check them out and from that first time, I’m probably somewhere in the region of seeing them some 30 gigs later and they finally return to BT but this time they’re on the main stage and the crowd is big, I mean seriously big – we’re probably taking bigger numbers than all the Manchester dates they put on last December in the Academy combined.
The growth this band have achieved in the past 6 years has been a joy to follow, from bricking themselves about whether they could sell 350 tickets at the Breadshed in Manchester after their first appearance at BT to being about to go on tour with Robbie Williams at some of the biggest venues Europe has to offer after this one. It’s business as usual for Thom entering on stage, it doesn’t take long before he’s taking the piss out of the pit including yours truly, then the band and even some of the crowd!
This band just seem to bring joy with them wherever they go and pick up more and more fans along the way doing so even though they cover subjects such as mental health, standing out or worse – not fitting in, ADHD (which Thom was recently diagnosed with) and even abuse, be it at school or in the home –
It’s all delivered in a way that seems to resonate with people and make them fall in love with the band. Hell, when it comes to inclusion Thom even managed to get a pair of young goth girls dancing by the end such is the power of their music and the bands relentless energy on stage.
Public Service Broadcasting
Yet another returnee to the BT fields that got an upgrade to the main stage this year were PSB (no, not the Pet Shop Boys) and this was quite a step up for the band that due to the nature of their live shows tend to stick at Academy size level venues for and this is purely only guesswork that the video/music format might get lost in bigger venues but after shooting them then walking round to the rear near the sound booth it looked as good as it has in tiny venues and it was great to see the return of the dancing spacemen, something that has been lacking since the Race For Space gigs that I’ve attended. Despite The Last Flight being a fairly recent release we were treated to somewhat of a greatest hits as tracks from all the major albums were performed so we got Everest, Spitfire, People Will Always Need Coal, People, Let’s Dance and obviously Go! as well as a smattering from said current album all delivered in the beautifully british way only Public Service Broadcasting deliver – you either get them or you don’t but clearly the majority of BT’er’s do and did.
Manic Street Preachers
I’ll level with you all now, I’m not a massive Manics fan. I don’t even know why I’m not it’s just I’ve never really got on with anything after the Everything Must Go album but even I was quite happy listening from the press office which I chose to head for because the main arena was absolutely rammed by the time we got out from the pit which incidentally the opening three songs we’re in for included my favourite, Motorcycle Emptiness so I had no real reason to stick around so all I will go by is from those who enjoy them and they said they enjoyed the set so there you are.
Leftfield
Annoyingly, the one I was waiting for in the press office started 15 mins early so as I was walking up to the Meadow stage at 10.35pm and past the Maui Waui tent and Big Ed outdoor dance area I suddenly recognised the tune playing and sprinted up to the back stage gate to at least get some shots during the last track we’re allowed in for, damn you Leftfield! Thankfully Leftfield weren’t dialing it in by just pressing play and pretending to twiddle knobs as they had live vocalists and a drummer on stage for the time I stuck around but by this point I was feeling like a broken man, parts of my body I’d forgotten existed were reminding me they were still there so reluctantly I retreated back to the tent to listen to them only to find the wind had changed direction and was blowing the sound away from the tent.
FML!
Summary
After last year’s absolutely abysmal weather on the run up and including the festival which turned some parts into lakes and the rest into a mud bath it was such a relief to return to a dry(ish) festival again. As it’s another year fully under the control of DHP Family it’s time to assess, the atmosphere felt a little different this time, not any worse, just different.
Several faces I’d got to notice over the previous years were absent, reasons why who knows, I dare say that price could be a significant factor but that isn’t something exclusive to Bearded, indeed I have to commend them on keeping the prices as low as they have but it’s the simple truth that live music is becoming a luxury that less and less are able to afford. Another difference is one that was a lot more positive and that was the shear number of nightmare clashes this year so sorry to the many many bands I wanted to see and cover but couldn’t and to the many more I didn’t get chance to accidentally catch and fall in love with but most of all thank you to the staff at BT, everyone behind the scenes, to the wonderful attendees who left the fields looking immaculate on Monday morning and thanks to DHP Family for ensuring this little gem of a festival is still around in 2025, will I be back in ‘26? You bet your ass I will, will I have the energy to work it? Well that’s the million dollar question…
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