For one weekend each year, Pikehall in Derbyshire is home to the independent festival Y Not. The Festival attracts 15,000 people and has featured acts such as The Cribs and Frank Turner in the past. This year was the 10th Anniversary of Y Not, with headliners Snoop Dogg, Basement Jaxx and Primal Scream playing, amongst a wide variety of other acts. You can read all about some of the acts that I saw and was most impressed by below!
Reverend & The Makers – If any band is familiar with Y Not Festival, it’s Sheffield indie rockers Reverend and the Makers. Playing the main stage on Friday evening, lead singer Jon McClure was instructing the rowdy crowd to bounce before he’d even sung a note. Though perhaps most famous for ‘Heavyweight Champion of the World’, the band have a collection of top party anthems that they played, including ‘He Said He Loves Me’, ‘Bassline’ and ‘Open Your Window’. The band always creates a fantastic atmosphere, with Jon jumping about the stage full of enthusiasm himself. Though Jon wasn’t impressed to say the least when he spoke to the crowd at one point with some wise advice; “anyone who’s not bounced thus far, have a fucking word with yourselves”.
Snoop Dogg – When it was announced that West Coast Hip Hop icon Snoop Dogg would be playing in a field in Pikehall for Y Not Festival, nobody quite knew what to expect, and for this reason floods of people headed to the main stage on Friday night to find out. Snoop brought confidence and charm to the stage as he encouraged the crowd to sing a long to a wide range of hits such as ‘Drop It Like Its Hot’ and ‘Who Am I? (What’s My Name?)’. Though some of the hits weren’t actually Snoop Dogg’s, they got a great reaction from the crowd all the same, with Snoop covering both House of Pain’s ‘Jump Around’ and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts ‘I Love Rock N Roll’, as well as paying tribute to both Dr. Dre and 2Pac. The night came to an almighty end with a mass sing a long of ‘Young, Wild & Free’, before Snoop encouraged the crowd to “smoke weed” before leaving the stage to Bob Marley ‘Jammin’’
Man Made – Manchester based three piece Man Made played a Saturday afternoon slot over at the Quarry Stage, drawing in an impressively large crowd. Looking as cool as ever the boys came on stage with ‘Vegetive State’ before drummer Scott faced an issue with his snare drum at the end of their third song ‘Raining In My Head’. Though the band weren’t phased by the technical problems in the slightest, with both lead singer and guitarist Nile and bassist Callum staying on the stage and handling the issue like true professionals. Nile played ‘Slowdance’ solo which sounded spectacular, followed by ‘Plastic Key To Living’, which he was joined by the band for towards the end; Scott came crashing in with the drums and it all sounded perfectly orchestrated. It was a fantastic set and incredibly impressive to see the band improvise with their set list, playing a couple of tracks that they don’t usually include in their sets.
Grant Nicholas – Best known for his role as the lead singer and guitarist of rock band Feeder, Grant Nicholas played an early evening solo set on Saturday over at the Quarry stage. His stunning debut album ‘Yorktown Heights’ was released in 2014 and Grant played 8 songs from the album during his unfortunately short set of half an hour, as well as ‘Black Clouds’ from his recently released short album of the same title. A definite highlight of the set was the performance of his gorgeous single ‘Soul Mates’, which Grant was anxious about playing due to the tent being in such close proximity to both the Dance Tent and some Fairground rides. Though Grant said that he couldn’t hear that well, I can assure you (and him) that it was a flawless performance that reduced some members of the crowd to tears.
The Strypes – Four piece Irish rock band The Strypes impressed the crowd over on the main stage on Sunday with their combination of rock and roll, and blues. Though the band are various ages between just 17 and 19, they put on a confident performance featuring tracks from their latest album ‘Little Victories’, and their debut 2013 album ‘Snapshot’. Singles ‘Blue Collar Jane’ and ‘What a Shame’ sounded superb and I was impressed in particular with lead guitarist Ross Farrelly, who quite often played his solos with his guitar behind his back – if that’s not remarkable then I don’t know what is! Unfortunately the band had to cut a song due to time restraints.
Augustines – Taking to the stage with a false start to ‘Nothing To Lose But Your Head’ due to a disobedient amp, New York indie band Augustines were overjoyed at the presence of the sun over at the main stage on Sunday afternoon. The band’s set list consisted of songs from their ‘Augustines’ and ‘Rise Ye Sunken Ships’ albums, as well as a new song called ‘Are We Live?’ The band brought an incredible amount of enthusiasm and angst to the stage and put on a fantastic performance, with lead singer and guitarist Billy McCarthy standing on a speaker in front of the stage during their final song, before jumping down and running past the crowd.
Johnny Marr – Looking fresh from their recent return from a tour oversees that took them from Auckland to Singapore, guitar god Johnny Marr and his band took to the stage with ‘The Right Thing Right’ from his first solo album ‘The Messenger’ for a one hour slot on the main stage before headliners Primal Scream on Sunday night. Playing to a packed crowd that included a front row full of fans that’d waited hours for his set, Johnny played a crowd pleasing set inclusive of four Smiths songs, a rousing cover of The Crickets track ‘I Fought the Law’, several tracks from his latest album ‘Playland’ such as his latest single ‘Candidate’ and a new song; the beautifully addictive ‘Spiral Cities’. Also in the set list was Electronic track ‘Getting Away With It’, which to me highlighted how far Johnny has come as a solo artist, as not only did it see Johnny swing his guitar behind him (not as vigorously as it sounds of course) whilst he psyched the crowd up singing ‘ah ah ah ah’ along to the tune produced by his band, but there was also a bit of hip shaking – the performance oozed with confidence from Johnny as a frontman, and rightly so too.
Primal Scream – Primal Scream brought the Y Not Festival 10th Anniversary to a wonderful end with a career spanning set covering many of their hits. Lead singer Bobby Gillespie strutted and skipped about the stage to opening track ‘2013’ from the band’s 2013 album ‘More Light’. It wasn’t only Bobby who was excited to be there, the crowd wasted no time warming up and within the first few songs an airbed and a wheelie bin had already been crowd surfed to the front. It also wasn’t long before a pint was thrown forward, hitting Bobby’s shoe. Bobby looked down at his shoes, looked back up and gave a hard stare whilst blowing a kiss out in to the crowd – if only every musician handled drink throwers in crowds like that. From the dystopian and lively ‘Swastika Eyes’ from their ‘XTRMNTR’ album to the sing-a-long track ‘Country Girl’, it was a crowd pleasing set list to say the least! Big hits ‘Loaded’, ‘Movin’ On Up’ and ‘Rocks’ were all saved for the end, ensuring that the band could really play the festival out with a bang. “I’m moving on up, getting out of the darkness” is a wonderful lyric, and from their performance last Sunday, Primal Scream are obviously still moving on up.
