Truck Festival 2019 Highlights

Festival season has been well underway in the past few months. As always this provides a mix of incredible line ups, great set moments, and even some good memes. Glastonbury saw the rise of AlexFromGlasto, David Attenborough leading a whopping 99% of tents to be taken away, and the BBC showing thousands of Stormzy fans shouting “F*ck the government and F*ck Boris”. Oxford’s Truck Festival has seemingly become the festival of the indie elite. Huge lineups, eclectic crowds, and good organisation has meant Truck is potentially the best festival of the year. With that, let’s take a look at some of the highlights.

HEADLINERS:

Obviously the first thing people look at for festivals is the headliners. When Truck announced Wolf Alice, Foals, and Two Door Cinema Club, every 2012-2014 indie kid collectively gasped and cried into their non-existent bank account. However this wasn’t all. Then came the early bird announcement of Slaves to headline the Thursday.

Slaves took the hottest day of the year and made it their bitch. Despite the heat, hundreds of people turned up to a packed out Market Stage to watch the Kent born punk duo tear the festival a new one. Dripping in sweat and beer, I found myself right in the middle of a circle pit as they blast out tracks from all three albums and showing off a couple tracks from their new EP The Velvet Ditch. They even threw out their cover of Skepta’s Shutdown which felt like it was a moment that wouldn’t be beat all weekend.

Friday saw Wolf Alice take to the Truck Stage to officially open the weekend. The four piece opened up their set with Moaning Lisa Smile from the Creature Songs EP. Continuing this Wolf Alice playing 90 Mile Beach from their first EP Blush. The killer riffs screaming from Joff’s guitar, Ellie’s angelic vocals, and the explosive bass licks and drums from Theo and Joel made this a set people spoke about all weekend.

I’d never seen Foals before. It’s blasphemy if I’m entirely honest and something that makes deeply disappointed in myself. So the opportunity to watch Foals headline like this was something I wasn’t going to miss. Tracks played from their entire career meant something for everyone regardless of whether they’re recent fans or they’ve been there since the beginning. Opening with On The Luna from new album Everything Not Lost Will Be Saved Part 1 felt fitting. Not only was it showing off their beautiful new album, but opened the set with a track that everyone was dancing to straight away. Pulling out unexpected songs like Hummer and Olympic Airways fed life to the big fans, while My Number and Inhaler saw every single person going mental with joy and moshing. Yannis’ crowd work coming off stage gave a much needed personal touch to the headline set. My favourite track from the set was Sunday. The hazy vibes lulled everyone into a daze of the setting sun and sound waves flowing through them. The group finally closed their set with Two Steps Twice from debut album Antidotes which got a huge reaction and was one of the most incredible ways to listen to that song.

The final headliner was Two Door Cinema Club. Sitting on four albums, TDCC had a good mix of songs from each era of their career. What really set the three piece apart was just how beautiful their stage was. Iconic visuals in the style of their latest album False Alarm to match each song and a countdown to mark their stage entrance added to the whole spectacle. Something TDCC did really took people and it wasn’t even to do with the music. The lights come up after they finish Bad Decisions only for Alex Trimble to announce they were going to pause for a minute so that a fan could get out safely. Despite thousands of people watching, and pretty much no room to move whatsoever, the fan in question managed to get out safely and allowed the band to jump straight into Changing Of The Seasons. Their final song Sun had every single person at the festival jumping and singing along. This was also put the backdrop of a huge firework display that made the final act of the weekend feel even more magical. Truck Festival pulled out all the stops and it shows.

Other Stages and Acts

Obviously the headliners are going to be some of the biggest highlights. However it wouldn’t be a festival without seeing a hundred other artists and running around trying to deal with all the clashes. Not only did some of my favourite artists play at Truck, but I’ve also made new discoveries that I’ve been blasting since.

King Nun were one of the first acts I saw on Saturday. The groups sets are bombastic, explosive, and down right insane at the best of times. So when lead singer Theo informs the crowd its the last time they’ll be playing some of their older songs the crowd went wild. During Hung Around, Theo smashed up his guitar telling the crowd after his friend had painted the instrument he was specifically asked to “Smash it to fucking pieces”. The four piece also debuted a new song which introduced us to a new side of King Nun, but that’s something we’ll all have to wait to see fully.

Spector put on an emotional set at the Market Stage on the Friday. Their massive anthemic tracks like All The Sad Young Men and Chevy Thunder brought people together unlike any artist could do. A shoutout to Fontaines D.C. who couldn’t make it, and beautiful crowd work helped Spector become a huge highlight of the weekend.

Acts like Swimsuit Competition and Beach Riot gave me some of my favourite discoveries over the weekend while I managed to also see acts like Psychedelic Porn Crumpets who I’d been wanting to see for a long time. PPC did fall victim to technical issues at the very end of their set at The Nest, but luckily near the end of the last track. Sunday saw Gaffa Tape Sandy, Kagoule, and Martha all perform one after the other at The Nest. Gaffa Tape Sandy was easily one of the best sets of the weekend. An insane crowd, a non-stop explosion of a setlist, and top tier stage presence captured fans and new people alike.

Does this count?

Welcome to the last section of this review. I’ve called it “Does This Count” because I’m not sure where I can put these highlights. Mr Motivator saw Sunday’s crowd of hungover festival goers and families join in unison to do what felt like step aerobics if it was held by The Fab Five from Queer Eye. The Oxford Symphony Orchestra were back and they were ready. Watching a moshpit to classical music is one of life’s greatest pleasures. As was everyone singing Changes by David Bowie while the Orchestra played the instrumentals. The campsites obviously provided their own entertainment for the weekend. 3am chants of “Boris is a Nonce”, “lets bash a Tory”, and “Ay ay where’s the K?” meant that not being asleep was at least somewhat entertaining.

Is Truck the best festival?

This is obviously highly debatable. It’s a personal opinion. Anyone who says no is probably wrong though. The ability to always find a killer act no matter what time it was, the great crowds, amazing weather, and watching Yannis Philippakis get off his rockers and go mad at the bar after their set meant Truck Festival set itself in stone as a strong contender for top festival this year.