Truck on!

We went to the rescheduled Truck Festival this weekend, which got flooded off in July. Truck is in it's tenth year, but we were Truck virgins. I've not been to a festival, basically because I'm very very lazy, but also because I started to think that they were more trouble than they were worth: you never get to see he bands that you want, it takes forever to get around, blah, blah blah...

Truck is a festival as it should be done. There were five different stages/tents/barns, all within easy wandering of each other, the place wasn't overcrowded at all, and most people played short sets, so even bands without many songs could survive their set without boring you to tears (well, mostly).

The line-up was a mixture of a few people you'd have heard of, the cream of local bands and some unusual acts (cf. Tommy Truax, who builds his own instruments out of gramaphone horns and such - gloriously, inspirationally silly).

We wandered around the whole weekend, and stumbled across some good stuff, the highlights of which were:

Tommy Truax (see above, very entertaining)
Foy Vance (very soulful singer, samples and loops himself live - awesome performer)
Skylarkin' (good female-fronted three-piece, I'd already heard them on 6-music and was not disappointed with them live - drummer wins most animal-from-the-muppets-like drummer of the weekend, narrowly edging out the drummer from The Winter Kids - you know me: it's all about the drumming/drummers) - they've got a single out on i-Tunes in October (15th, I think...)
The Schla La Las - all-female shambolic/melodic indie/rock - good fun, very energetic and their last ever gig apparently (sad face) - Heather loved as well, especially the matching polka-dot fiftes-style dresses.
The Witches - local Oxford band, I'm friends with the drummer, so I have to give them mention, but they also played a good set on Sunday morning and woke us up good and proper.
and much much more...

We had a great time, Truck's really restored our faith in festivals (and in local bands), can't wait for next year...