Wychwood Festival
May 2025 (Cheltenham)
Wychwood Festival, held at the Cheltenham Racecourse, has become a firm family festival favourite over the last twenty years, drawing upcoming artists and headline bands from the 80’s and 90’s, they know their audience and stick to a formulae that clearly works for them – once again the festival is almost a sell-out, so whose to argue.
Wychwood is a relatively small festival, one main stage and three smaller tents, plus the usual mix of food/drinks/festival clothing etc, and its focus is as a family festival. It is to their credit that they have designed the festival layout well, and the programming, so that there is minimal sound interference from other stages/events whilst queues are generally small, for toilets, bars and food stalls. I’m not sure they can take the credit for the glorious sunshine all weekend but after some of their previous rain-washed festivals they deserve it, and the crowd make the most of it.
Friday sees a steady stream of campers and day visitors eager to check out the afternoon and evenings events. Over on the main stage festival staples Scouting for Girls are playing what is, broadly, the same set as they played the last time with the addition of ‘Come on Eileen’. But they draw a respectable crowd who clearly enjoy it, but after a few songs it’s time to check out what else is on. Now OK, so this might sound incredibly uncool, but Barrioke has become something of a Wychwood tradition and on the strength of this year’s show it isn’t hard to see why. Barry (Sean Williamson from Eastenders) offers a warm and jovial feel to his show as punters take the stage to sing karaoke with him. It’s a simple formulae which works a treat. We get ‘Disco 2000’ and ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ reminding us that the demographic of this festival is clearly those for whom the 90’s were “our time”. There are no surprises, it really is like it says on the tin, but he pulls a huge crowd and has everyone singing along, waving pints in the air and makes sure everyone enjoys themselves. It is completely uncool, but so much fun on a warm summers evening with a pint of cider.
One of the best aspects of any festival is stumbling into a tent/area and discovering a band you’d no intention of watching and discovering that they are in fact ace and you’d have been a fool to miss them! This was the case with Gentleman’s Dub Club who packed out a steaming hot tent with their raucous energetic dub tracks. The eight-piece band refused to allow the audience to just stand and watch insisting that everyone got-down to some serious bass driven dub tracks. What a find!
Back to the main stage, Friday headliners are Shed Seven who offer a blast from the past of the 90’s with an energetic set with big hits like Going for Gold’ and ‘Getting Better’ along with a cover of ‘Suspicious Minds’. Over to the next tent for some Dub-Beatles, who prove to be another of the festival highlights. Everyone knows every song but not performed like this. Given that the Beatles produced so many great tracks, and some of the most overplayed tracks ever (contentious I know), hearing them played whilst underpinned by a dub soundtrack feels original and breaths fresh air into tracks like ‘Help’’ and ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, though sadly no amount of dub and cool DJ noises can add anything to ‘Yellow Submarine’ but thankfully we only get a short extract.
Whereas Friday often means not everyone has arrived, and Sunday can mean people have headed home, Saturday afternoon and night are packed and the sun is still out. Public Service Broadcasting bring their mix of music and film to the main stage and create a mesmerising set for the next hour, despite their mixing engineer collapsing early on it the set. Tracks such as ‘Spitfire’, ‘Everest’ and ‘Go!’ soundtrack old Pathé looking footage and despite performing in daylight their set captivates and energises the audience. As PSB draw to a close we dart over to the next tent for the Magic Numbers. I’ve not seen the band for many years, but they instantly remind everyone why we enjoyed them so much first time around. Each song is a joyous uplifting feel-good hit to get the summer festival season started and those that manage to get into the tent, and plenty are left frustrated outside, are treated to an hour of gorgeous harmonies whilst the band perform much of their debut, Mercury nominated, album with highlights being the opening ‘Forever Lost’ and ‘Love’s a Game’.
But Saturday belongs to the main band, James. With a back-catalogue stretching back over 18 albums and almost 40 years the band have a treasure-trove of tracks to pull out for an adoring crowd. James manage to mix up their setlists each night, setlist.fm won’t be much help here, meaning the night is full of surprises – other headliners should take heed to this! Over their career the band have grown in size and stature, now sporting nine band members on stage. But most eyes are really on Tim Booth, a frontman of wild abandon who can belt out a song or cusp you close to his whispered vocals, all whilst dancing like a man possessed – apparently, he is actually a modern dance tutor. Launching into ‘Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)’ and ‘Ring The Bells’ the band tear through a mix of 90’s classics like ‘Come Home’ as well as more recent material such as ‘Beautiful Beaches’, about the LA fires, and ‘Shadow of a Giant’ from their most recent album. What is striking is that the new material sounds as vibrant and energetic as the big-hits from the 90’s. James don’t appear to have aged and are still capable of making deeply moving and memorable music. One of the joys of watching James is how frequently Tim Booth uses the walkway to come down to the crowd, he seems to perform half the show stood aloft his adoring crowd. Finishing with ‘Laid’ and ‘Sound’ the band know they have done plenty to send the crowd back home/to campsite with a smile on their faces. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing James many time and this ranks as one of the best I’ve seen them perform.
Like most festivals, Sunday has a more subdued feel to it. Throughout the day many are shaking off the enjoyment of Saturday night whilst others are packing up to start journeys home. This gives Wychwood a much quieter and calmer feel but the sun is still out and the fun and music continue.
Closing the festival are Doves. It’s been 25 years since Doves released their debut album, Lost Souls, and in that time they have become one of our great live bands. Sadly, this years live shows have seen the band re-configured as main singer, Jimi Goodwin, is unable to tour meaning, brothers, Jez and Andy share lead singer duties. It’s not the same and there is no point pretending otherwise but between them they do a plenty good-enough job as they tear through a set built around all their singles and key-tracks. Although the fourteen song setlist draws from all six Doves albums, it draws most heavily from Last Broadcast including a stunning ‘Caught By The River’, the quite literally ‘Pounding’ and what should have been a huge stadium tracks with the positively throbbing ‘There Goes the Fear’. They’ve been away too long and it’s great to have them back. As the band draw to a close, festival organisers will surely be delighted that this year’s festival has helped cement Wychwood’s reputation as a great family festival. It might not be cutting edge, but it knows what it wants to do and does it well. See you next year!
By: Dave Roberts