Nestled on the north Somerset coast the Watchet Festival rarely gets the publicity of its noisy neighbours, the All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival at nearby Minehead or the mammoth Glastonbury Festival an hour or so away at Pilton.
But while it may not get the headlines, it is nevertheless something of a success among the dozens of boutique festivals around the UK that it competes with.
Now in its fifth year part of its appeal is its eclectic line up with this year being no exception. Along side up and coming local acts, there are some well known names, a few standard tribute acts and bizarrely an X Factor winner.
All About Flux
Opening the festival were the lively and energetic All About Flux, an up and coming pop punk band from Somerset. They provided a strong opening to the festival and drew a sizeable crowd of all ages. Even with the heavens opening above us, the mood seemed light and cheery. Esther, the lead vocalist of the band, provided especially strong vocals.
They debuted their latest release, ‘Party All Summer’ for the first time live; a particularly catchy tune. All in all, each band member performed with passion, getting the crowd jigging and creating a positive atmosphere for the rest of the night.
Among the tribute bands The Lily Allen Show were one of the low points, especially for covering Allen’s song ‘Fuck You’. A spectacularly poor choice at this family friendly event.
U2UK faired much better, delivering a very accurate rendition of the songs, proving extremely popular with the largest crowd of the night. This fake Bono was an excellent lookalike as well.
Come 11pm the Croissant Neuf Tent was the place to be, where DJ Liam Gallagher (no, not the real one) succeeded in packing out the venue.
Come Saturday, and the first notable act of the day was 360, an excellent SKA band. They drew a large crowd and got everyone bouncing along. If only you could be in two places at once! Then you would join Josh West for the Drum Nation workshop. As participants, we felt a great sense of unity as the whole tent joined together to make music!
X Factor winner Leon Jackson appeared half an hour earlier than expected, and on the main stage instead of the Croissant Neuf as expected, catching most people off guard. The word soon spread and the crowd gathered fast.
Since being dumped by his label young Leon has attempted to reinvent himself as a Scottish folk rock act. But in keeping with Jackson’s post X Factor career the festival experienced its first technical problems here, with four counts of sharp audio feedback, piercing the eardrums of many. Poor Leon.
Leon Jackson
Headliners Dreadzone provided the largest and most energetic crowd I had seen so far at the festival! There was such a positive and lively atmosphere. All the crowd was cheering. The light show was synchronised well to the music and particularly punchy.
The entire performance had a very much improvised and freestyle feel. They put on a great show and the crowd stayed consistent throughout.Dreadzone formed way back in 1993, and effortlessly mix reggae, electronica, dub, folk and rock together to create entirely new music.
Dreadzone
Onto the Sunday and Somerset’s very own The Wurzels provided a highlight to the festival. In true Somerset style, there wasn’t a single person insight (bar the kids!) that didn’t have a pint of cider in hand. The entire crowd was singing along and the audience interaction was at its best. The Wurzels really were the high point of the festival spirit.
As the last main stage act of the Festival drew near, a massive crowd gathered that remained dense beyond the festival flags. The host limbered up the crowd with tunes such as House of Pain’s ‘Jump Around’ and Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’. The crowd cheered and jumped and sang! The hype was incredible. This led to the biggest anti-climax imaginable. 1990s indie rockers Dodgy were nothing like the crowd expected. Completely different to everything they had been prepared for.
Dodgy
Looking around I could see that, after two songs, half of the crowd had become distracted and started their own conversations amongst each other. In fact by the end of the night, Dodgy’s crowd was only a third of the size. Many of which had drifted over to the Croissant Neuf Tent quite a bit earlier than 11 in anticipation of a rave with DJ Pauls Stevens.
Overall the festival was a massive success. Reasonable food and alcohol prices kept visitors and campers alike happy. Even the toilets didn’t smell and stayed hygienic for the duration of the festival. The Eavis family should take note of that.
Words by Sean Horsfield, pictures by Mathew Danby
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The writer of this piece is obviously not a Leon Jackson fan! I was there and apart from a slight mic failure on the first song, if there were any further technical difficulties, I wasn’t aware of them, and neither did the crowd appear to be! Leon was terrific and he got a great response from the audience.
Fair enough if people don’t like the guy but it amazes me how 4 years on people are still ready to critisise/make light of him and his music, and won’t give him a chance no matter how good he is. He has had a lot of negativity to deal with but I think that people who listened to the media instead of judging for themselves are are starting to see Leon is indeed a very talented individual and is making good progress with his new sound.
I agree with the comment about 360 though. They were fantastic and had us all singing and jumping up and down.