Category: Festivals

Heptonstall Festival

The town of Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire dates back to the Saxon (not the band!) era and sheep rearing was the main occupation at that stage. When the industrial revolution commenced, there was an increasing need for water-powered weaving mills and the villages proximity to the river presented a considerable advantage. The transportation element was further enhanced with the opening of the Rochdale Canal in 1798 and the Calder Valley rail line in 1841.

In the 1970’s and 1980’s many artists, musicians and bohemians gravitated towards the town thereby increasing the tourism and reliable train links were created into the big cities of Manchester and Leeds. The town obtained fairtrade status in 2003 and was also chosen to be part of the Stage 2 route in the 2014 Tour de France.

On the cultural front the original video of Dream Academy’s 1984 single ‘Life in a Northern Town’ was filmed in the town as was the hugely successful TV series Happy Valley.  A renowned Blues Festival was held there in the early 2010’s and there is also the nationally renowned Trades Club where regular gigs are held, though I have never yet visited as tickets are regularly at a premium.

Dream Academy promo. Image Credit iheart.com

Luminaries such as Patti Smith, Teenage Fanclub, Public Service Broadcasting, Loop and Mark Lanegan have graced the stage there. Peel faves Bogshed were from the town, and I still recall their very lo-fi out there ‘hit’ single ‘Fat Boy Exam Failure’, and I also saw them at Preston Caribbean Club back in 1985.

Above the town lies the hilltop village of Heptonstall where the poet Sylivia Plath is buried. It is a throwback to an archetypal Yorkshire village further embellished by the fact that in the 1980’s the roads were returned to their original stone setts and late 19th century cast-iron gas lamps were installed.

Bogshed. Image Credit pinterest.com

The original church was damaged by a gale in 1847 and now just a shell remains. However, one of the lads in 2015 picked up on a more contemporary usage of the church with the identification of the annual Heptonstall festival where John Bramwell and Lottery Winners have graced the stage there.  

Thus, on the 04/07/15 we sallied over on the train alighting at Hebden Bridge station and after a couple of beers in town we headed up on the bus to the village. When I say up, that is a significant understatement as it is a very steep climb, one I have only yet walked downwards, but hope to rectify that upward trajectory at some stage.

The two pubs in the village and accompanying food stalls were doing a roaring trade and it was a very well organised and q friendly set-up. On the Heptonstall Festival Acoustic Stage we saw a band called Revisit and the Three Valleys Gospel Choir, who perform locally on a regular basis, mainly in the Todmorden area.

Top of the Heptonstall hill. Image Credit screenyorkshire.co.uk

On the Heptonstall Festival Weavers Square I encountered some electro-pop from the Manchester musician Zoe Stirling who is also known under the alias KOHL. The Hebden based eight-piece Owter Zeds who have been on the scene for 30 years followed with their ska covers. Next up was Catfish Skillet who are classed in the hugely niche genre of Pennine Appalachian and incorporate some quick picking bluegrass banjo playing. The final band were a decent post-punk band from Liverpool called Takotsubo Men.

I returned a couple of years later to attend the 2017 edition and on the main stage witnessed local folk band Johnny Powell & The Seasonal Beasts and a jaunty acoustic set from MK and the Escalators. They had set up a further stage in the evocative setting of the remnants of Heptonstall Festival Church where a Scottish influenced folk combo called Outside the Box played some foot tapping tunes.                 

Beacons Festival 2012

Skipton is a traditional historic market town in North Yorkshire, located about an hour’s drive from Preston. It contains a rather fine 14th century castle which was Yorkshire’s last Royalist stronghold when it was besieged during the English Civil War. When we heard about a new festival taking place near the town at Heslaker Farm on the Funkirk Estate, we thought it was well worth a foray over to check it out.

The Moor Music festival was held in Ilkley, West Yorkshire from its inception in 2006 and was a non-corporate sponsored event and had a considerable green eco slant and featured local bands. The shindig moved to Heslaker Farm for the 2009 and 2010 editions before rebadging itself as the Beacons Festival for the 2011 event. It remained there until 2015 before morphing again into a short-lived tri-city event in Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester called Beacons Metro.  

However, the 2011 version which we purchased tickets for was hit by unseasonably inclement weather resulting in its cancellation and our tickets were carried over to the August 2012 festival. We managed to purloin some digs at the hugely inviting Woolly Sheep pub located on Sheep Street which is known locally as the ‘Woolly’. It is owned by the Timothy Taylor brewery, and they stock some very fine beers.  

Woolly Sheep pub. Image Credit c.yell.com

We had a day ticket for the Saturday so on arrival in Skipton we had a wander round the town followed by a hearty lunch before heading over in a taxi to the site. It was a very rural setting and quite a small site literally attached to the working farm, but a 1000 times smaller than what I would envisage the Glastonbury site to be!

You could wholly understand the previous year’s cancellation as despite a batch of decent weather the ground remained a quagmire and there were not many dry seating points on the grass. On the upside though they rather excitingly had the first real ale tent I had seen at a festival before it subsequently became a staple tent item at future events.    

There were two main stages, namely Stool Pigeon and the Noisey/Vice stage and we gravitated between both areas.  On the forenamed stage we initially saw a singer songwriter called Tom Finian.  The next act was 2:54, a decent shoegazey act from London comprised of the Thurlow sisters who had just recently released their self-titled debut album.

An hour later we saw the Japandroids set. They are a punky act from Vancouver and were touring their touted second album Celebration Rock and they created a rather fine racket; and they remain in circulation to this day. They were followed by Obaro Ejimiwe, who is better known as Ghostpoet from London. He has been twice Mercury Prize nominated and I enjoyed his unique sound.   

We saw more acts over on the Noisey/Vice stage, the initial one being Best Friends, a group of pals who met at university and provided some noisy guitar fuzz. Next up was Plank from Manchester who had a 60’s space rock feel about them.  Following them was Paws from Scotland who have now produced four albums of off-kilter guitar tunes in the similar vein to Swearin and No Age. Their first ever show at the Stereo Café Bar in Glasgow in 2010 was supporting the Dum Dum Girls.

Beacons Festival site. Image Credit blogspot.com

We saw Archy Ivan Marshall, a singer/rapper who has many pseudonyms, but that day played under the moniker King Krule.  My favourite band of the day was Swim Deep, a woozy dream pop band from Birmingham, who were later cited as part of the Digbeth-based B-town movement. They had a really nice vibe to them, though the sound could have been a tad louder for my tastes.

The final act we saw was Eagulls from Leeds who were in the post punk mould and the lead singer George Mitchell had an element of Ian Curtis in his stage persona.  They subsequently split in 2019 with George then becoming a painter and starting a new musical project.

We managed to book a taxi back to the digs and reached the pickup point by stumbling through dark fields which reminded me of the early Wickerman festivals.