Beginner’s Guide to Truck Festival

Come this time of year, it can be very easy to start feeling as if your life simply isn’t as interesting as everybody else’s’. Picture this: you’re sitting at your desk scrolling through Instagram, seeing snap after snap of just about everybody doing just about everything, from travelling the world to letting loose at that concert you tried but failed to get tickets for, all while you’re counting down the minutes to five o’ clock and trying to fathom how to reload your stapler. Sound familiar? Well, I’m here to tell you that your life doesn’t have to be this way. That’s right- you can be the insta-envy of all your friends for a change! How, you ask? Two words: Truck Festival.

Now, hold it. I know that, normally, if one of your mates were to ask you to give up one of your precious weekends off to spend on a working farm in rural Oxfordshire, your initial reaction might be to tell them where to go. But throw in a live gig from the likes of The Vaccines and Franz Ferdinand, and the whole thing begins to sound a lot more appealing, am I right?

Truck who?

The first Truck Festival took place back in 1998 when the majority of us were either in primary school learning our ABCs or waddling about in nappies. It was at this time that Joe and Robin Bennett decided that mainstream music festivals had become all too common and predictable, and that something fresh and new was needed to shake up the increasingly monotonous festival scene. And so, Truck Festival was born, and it has been going from strength to strength ever since.

You may quite rightly be wondering how you’ve never heard of this unique, successful festival that has been running for almost twenty years, and you’re not alone. Truck Festival prides itself on being “the Godfather of the small festival scene”, even describing itself as “anti-major festival”, so the chances are that you may never have come across TF unless you actively went looking for it, thanks to its refreshing anti-commercial approach: i.e. you aren’t force-fed endless advertisements on social media, radio, TV or (super-annoyingly) between your favourite songs on Spotify.

So, what is Truck Festival? I’ll tell you. Think Glastonbury-come-village fete type vibes and that pretty much sums it all up. Take your standard mainstream music festival and shrink it down to less than half its size, and there you have it. Truck Festival brings all the best bits of your average festival (amazing line-up, great location and on-site camping) minus all of the things that, if we’re being truly honest with ourselves, we all hate about festivals (hordes of sweaty people pushing and shoving to fill a venue that is better suited for about half of its current capacity). That’s the beauty of TF, it is a microcosmic version of the festivals we know and love, minus all the crap bits!

Truck Festival 2017

This year is set to be one of the biggest years yet for Truck Fest (in venture, not size- which remains as small and friendly as ever). The line-up is not only unmatched by any other small festival, but it rivals its bigger competitors too. Friday kicks off the festival on the aptly named Truck stage (it is literally a stage made from the shells of old trucks) with performances from none other than Scottish rock band Franz Ferdinand, and English punk-duo, Slaves. Saturday sees performances from London-born rock band The Libertines and Liverpudlian group The Wombats who, with their fourteen-year catalogue of anthems are sure to not only be one of the top performers of the weekend, but of the entire summer. Sunday is another huge day on the Truck Stage, closing the epic weekend with live sets from indie rock group The Vaccines, and alternative rock band Maximo Park, for whom 2017 marks seventeen years as a creative quartet in the music industry.

In between these unmissable performances from the festival’s main headliners, you may choose to wander over to the Market Stage, in which case you are in for a real treat, although your nose may not be, as this barn is home to a herd of cows for 51 weeks of the year (but don’t worry, these cows really know their moosic- see what I did there?). Amongst the incredible array of talent on show on this stage, which is the biggest indoor stage of the whole festival and manages to escape the ordinary by imposing no genre distinctions, expect an explosive performance from Scottish alternative rock band Twin Atlantic, who are performing at TF less than a year after the release of their new album, GLA. Stumble over to the brand-new stage Palm City, hosted by Entirety Labs, for performances from the likes of actor, musician and DJ Idris Elba, who is making his comeback to the small festival scene this year. With many acts still to be announced across TF’s traditional and debut stages, from firm favourites to brand-new up-and-comers, when it comes to the variety of music on offer, this is a weekend that simply can’t be missed.

Does getting down and dirty (literally, TF is held on a working farm after all) in the wonderful and wacky world of Truck Festival sound like your thing? Main sale tickets are now sold out, but you can sign up for their very limited resale here. Good Luck and see you at Truck!

 

Elise Harvey