Galtres Festival – 25th August 2012

We were on holiday when ‘Boy-Lee’ had his 40th so we met up with him on the Saturday of the Galtres festival instead. Buzzcocks & Ocean Colour Scene had headlined the Fri night and Billy Bragg & Adam Ant were doing Sunday but we could only get to the one day. It might seem a bit of an odd choice, to have a music festival the same week end as one of the countries major festivals (the Leeds/Reading bash) is on less than 30 miles away….but Galtres is as much about the beer and food as the bands. It apparently started at the back of a pub years ago and has steadily grown since.

Typical of this years poor summer weather, as we arrived at the somewhat muddy car park, thunder roared and the heavens opened, but after that it wasn’t too bad. Lee had a go at the rodeo before we went off to see some Knights doing a jousting display….

The first band we saw was ‘Fossil Collective‘ who brought a touch of west coast, Californian style vibe to the proceedings – the sun even came out when they were on.

There were several stages on the site and we saw ‘Goodnight Ohio’ on a tiny stage when we realised there were 3 ‘Lee’s’ there…..

Matty and Sam had dissappeared earlier and returned at this point after having had a major mud fight……

After the clean up operation, we went to watch a salsa band – Lee did a dancing lesson whilst ‘Boy-Lee’ and I enjoyed a gorgeous currey.

Next on the main stage were the ‘Virgin Mary’s‘ who had the attitude and energy of Green Day and a fantastic drummer who got so into it, that he did half the set standing up to get some extra pounding in….

Next up was Leeds own ‘Ellen & the Escapades‘ who did a great set – lots of crowd interaction which Lee liked….we’d watched the Cure from Reading and Robert Smith hardly talked between songs and she got a bit narked…..but Ellen she liked.

We spied Jon Gomm making his way from Elen’s set to do his own so accosted him for a photo…..

…..and what a great set he did. His guitar playing is quite dazzling in its intricacy and he performed barefoot which I appreciated anyway. The days music in that tent had gone under the banner of the Solid Air sessions and this guy could easily rival John Martyn for folky uniqueness.

The Guillemots were next on the big stage – I really enjoyed them when previously saw them (promoting their first LP ‘Through the Windowpane’ in 2006) and I reaaly enjoyed them again – maybe it was Fyfe Dangerfields banter……

Unfortunately, little Sally had had enough by then and her little pals had gone off to their tents so we regretfully had to leave before ‘Ash‘ took to the stage. It was no bad thing in the end as we had to be towed out of the mud by a tractor……and the kids were asleep before we left the site.

Bob the Chiropodist