Despite the fantastic line-up, Truck Festival 2017 failed to impress.

Having attended Truck Festival since 2013 and seen it grow from a small two day event into one of the UK’s largest “small” festivals, up until last year and despite the increasing size, it still kept the family friendly village fete atmosphere that made it such a pleasure to attend.

This year however, for the 20^th anniversary there were a series of huge changes: now running over three days instead of two, the whole layout of the arena was different, as well as a new campsite to what was used in previous years.

Day 1

Although with our press ticket we were able to skip the main queue for the campsite, those with normal tickets were not so lucky. Poor planning here, as well as heightened security checks meant the queue was backed up over at least a mile, with some people waiting 3-4 hours to get in. With doors opening at 10am and bands starting at midday, many people missed some of the opening acts. If Truck Festival is going to keep this new three day structure, the campsite should be opened on Thursday evening instead. While most people were caught up in the queue, our first act were northern slack-rockers Trash, who played a great set, a highlight of which was their new single ‘Migraines’. Next up were the fun and funk Bad Sounds, who brought a brilliant set of tunes that seemed to hold of the impending rain for an extra hour. However, as the evening wore on and the onslaught of rain began, it became obvious this was more than the forecasted showers. Slaves, back to Truck Festival after their chaotic show in 2015, took to the main stage and completely owned it. By this point the rain was already reducing the ground to a bog, but this didn’t stop moshpits kicking off all over the place as they played tracks like ‘Where’s Your Car Debbie?’ and ‘Hey’.

After Slaves it was time to speed over to Jagwar Ma at the Market Stage. The Aussie group played one of the best sets of the weekend, combining pysch-tinged vocals and guitar with dancey beats. With a great light show to compliment them, they got the whole Crowd moving. After them it was back over to the main stage for Franz Ferdinand. With a beefed up line-up — now including a keyboard player — the Scottish indie rockers were in fine form, treating the crowd to cuts from all four of their albums as well as a few new tracks, which fitted seamlessly into their set. Ending with ‘Take Me Out’ and ‘This Fire’, with every word being bellowed back by the crowd, they were a great ending to the first day. In terms of a nightlife, Truck has much to offer after hours, with the dance tent at Palm City, or the Wild West Saloon being among the options. However, the heavy rain that set in Friday night made negotiating the site even more difficult and somewhat dampened the late evening’s proceedings.

Day 2

As we woke up and explored the site on Saturday morning, it became clear the damage the rain had done. Although some hay had been put down, it did little to help the bog that had been created by water-logged footfall over the whole arena.

Slowly making our way through the site while attempting not to slip in the mud, we headed for The Nest, curated again by So Young Magazine. This year they didn’t disappoint, with a bumper lineup of both up and coming and more established acts in the British indie scene.

Of these, we managed to catch Palm Honey, Superfood, The Magic Gang and Yak. Superfood played to a packed tent, showcasing funky tracks from their upcoming second album, which received a great audience reaction. Next up, Brighton’s The Magic Gang brought a bit of sun to proceedings with their upbeat indie rock. Also worth noting is that lead singer Jack did the whole set with his leg in some kind of cast, but was still able to move around the stage with apparent ease. Yak took to the stage next, delivering a high octane set of garage rock, with frontman Oli in full rockstar mode. Jumping into the crowd at every opportunity, even throwing his guitar in at one point, the crowd loved it, and the whole Nest descended into a constant stream of mosh pits. Although hosting a fantastic line-up, The Nest seemed smaller than last year, especially for the calibre of bands performing, and filled up way to quickly making it hard to get in and out at times.

The Wombats delivered a crowd pleasing set of indie rock bangers, warming the crowd up for the biggest headliner Truck has ever had – The Libertines. If The Libertines played a well-rehearsed set without any mistakes, there would be a riot. Part of their charm is that whatever stage you watch them on, it still feels like you’re watching one of those raw early gigs. What lets them get away with this is that they’ve written some absolutely fantastic tracks over their career. Playing the likes of ‘Time For Heroes’, ‘What Katie Did’ and ‘Don’t Look Back Into The Sun’ (a bit ironic considering we’d barely seen the sun all weekend), they were a great end to the Saturday and a pleasure to watch. With more rain overnight, the arena and campsite were now a swamp, with the main campsite pathways almost impossible to walk on.

Day 3

As Sunday began, the sun threatened us with it’s presence, and apart from a few showers, made the final day a bit more bearable. Begging back at The Nest, we caught Weirds, fresh off a tour support slot with The Wytches. Their crazy noise-rock, with hints of psych and metal, was an interesting way to start the day, but they seemed to win the crowd over fully by the end of the set, helped by the lead singer who kept coming right out into the crowd during songs. Later on, Scottish duo Honeyblood rocked the Market Stage to a large crowd, playing tracks from both their self-titled debut album and follow-up ‘Babes Never Die’.

Seemingly out off by the dampness, the festive site on Sunday seemed to have emptied out. Perhaps put off by the sparser line-up on the final day as well, many people packed and left on Saturday night. However, those that stuck around got a treat on the main stage, with Maximo Park running though a great set of old and new tracks to a massive crowd. Frontman Paul Smith revealed that Truck was one of the first festivals they ever played, with “about ten people in the audience”. After asking who was there, and receiving a lot more cheers than just ten people, hey laughed: “Maybe I’m remembering it wrong then!”. Ending with fan favourite ‘Apply Some Pressure’, we went into the set writing the band off as a bit of a novelty/nostalgia trip, but they actually put on a very impressive show.

Proving to be a poor choice to close down festivities at Truck, The Vaccines were the smaller of the three headliners across the weekend. Nevertheless, from the start the band proved these naysayers wrong, pumping out a mixed bag of new offerings and tune-after-tune from all three of their albums. Frontman Justin Young was on fine form; taking the idea of smart/casual to the extreme in a cowboy style shirt and a ripped Adidas tracksuit, leaping around the stage at any opportunity. Ending with ‘If You Wanna’ + ‘Norgaard’ taken from their debut album, The Vaccines kicked off more moshpits and a massive sing-a-long cementing that with another album or two under the belts they could be worthy headliners of bigger stages than Truck.

Overall, the lineup was one of the best of the summer and in Truck Festival’s history. However, the weekend was plagued by organisational problems. As well as the aforementioned queueing issues and lack of preparation for the rain, there were a host of other issues. Security were generally unhelpful and seemed to know nothing about the site, while the volunteer stewards were nowhere to be found. The reshuffled arena made getting around difficult, while there were also noise spillages from stage-to-stage. The crowd was also more unpleasant this year, attracting more less families and a more uncaring lot you might find at bigger, rights of passage festivals like Reading and Leeds.

The family camping also apparently didn’t have enough toilets and the whole campsite was poorly lit, making finding tents at night very difficult. A huge influx of reported thefts made the atmosphere across the weekend feel less safe than previous years, as well as banning bringing your own booze into in the main arena.

Truck was still an enjoyable weekend, but something of the magic of previous years has been lost in the expansion, and will need a some changes next year in order to keep its title of one of the best small festivals in the UK.

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