Live Review: Y Not Festival 2024 (Sunday)
Sunday
Sunday was a sombre morning, knowing it was the last day was a bit of a downer and seeing the campsite starting to empty with people packing up and loading their cars added to that too. The sky was grey, the clouds were raining, you could sense a stange feeling.
Rather than dwell on this though, let’s go again! we still have a day left and Noel Gallagher is only bloody headlining!
I was heading into the arena early every morning to get some work done and I have to say, the cleaners deserve a medal. When I would enter, the ground and the tables were covered in plastic cups, cans and food, it was so bad you could hardly see the floor in parts, especially around the tents. When I would come back after an hour or so, it was completely clear and looked untouched so hats off to all the cleaners, definitely the unsung heroes of the weekend.
Bandit
Photo by – Marc Whiffen – theindiemasterplan.co.uk
Our indie sweethearts Bandit were opening The Allotment Stage, not a bad way to start the day at all.
Bandit have been one of our favourite bands for a few years now, they are still relatively unknown so we were buzzing when they got added to play, they deserve these slots for sure. Their poetic lyrics are mesmerising, every line that Nat delivers is an absolute gem.
They started with an half full tent, but after they got started with the heavy ‘Goonies (I Only Tolarate You)‘ it didn’t take long for it to fill up, I mean, if you were walking past and heard them, there is no way you wouldnt be intrigued and head into that tent, those who didn’t know about them before would have definitely checked them out when they got home.
The poem ‘Here’s To Being Alive‘ was played to the music of ‘Would You Push Me In The Nettles?‘, I thought at end they were going to burst into ‘Nettles’, I guess not having a very long set might have been the reason why they didn’t though.
Bandit also played a new tune ‘Mascarade’, this slotted perfectly into the set.
Ending with ‘I’d Try Anything Twice‘ they looked really happy to have pulled in a full to capacity tent and I’m sure they won a new army of fans there.
Raised By Owls
Right… Where do I go with this? A massive curveball this one.
Over the weekend we were getting told that we have to check this band out called Raised by Owls, hearing that they were an extreme metal band, we weren’t overly keen to go but when Sunday came around and there were no clashes, we decided that we would check them out… Oh, I’m glad we did.
When we got into The Giant Squid, the band were dressed as priests and doing their sound check. The singer was growling down the mic and sounded in pain, I was like, well, this gonna be shocking and expected the worse.
As soon as the band started, they came out and demanded a big circle in the pit, this started with some angry moshers flying about, I pretty much expected that but what followed was utterly bizarre and absolutely brilliant.
I couldn’t tell you what any songs were called or what the lyrics were, well, apart from one called ‘Ross Kemp on Gangbangs‘.
The pit was running around in a circle, I believe this is to open up a portal that will allow the devil to rise up through the concert himself and channel his energy into the band. This sounds like a normal metal gig to me but everything changed.
One guy jumped into the pit and started to do the ‘Macarena‘, people started to follow him, before long the whole pit was doing the dance. Later, somebody sat on floor pretending to row a boat and you guessed it, everybody joined in with that too. With the music was heavy and the vocals being screamy, this pit was truely a bizarre contrast.
Also during the set, frontman Sam Strachan asked the crowd to make Devil horns with their hands and shout “Hail Satan“, believe it or not… Satan actually showed up, in the form of Mr Blobby holding double ended dildos for claws.
Strachan said, this was the 5th time that they had played Y Not Festival, he doesn’t know why they keep getting booked and they don’t know why people turn up to watch them because they are awful. He also said, as long as they keep getting booked then they will keep coming, after a pause he said “Do you know what else is coming?….. The Vengabus.” Followed by the tune being played over the PA, this briefly turned the pit into a cheesy rave.
The band finished with two covers, ‘Common People‘ by Pulp and ‘Break Stuff‘ by Limp Bizkit.
To say I wasn’t lookong forward to this set, it’s one that stuck with me for sure, walking out of the tent after, I turned to my Girlfriend and said “What just happened?“
The Kairos
Photo by – Marc Whiffen – theindiemasterplan.co.uk
Scouse lads, The Kairos had a massive slot half way up the bill on the Main Stage, having seen these lads twice this year already, it was the first time catching them on such a big stage.
They wasted no time and were straight into the banger ‘Suspend‘, the groove is infectious, no way you can’t hear the intro and not be hooked on these lads.
Thomas Dempsey has the biggest gob in the industry, it’s fascinating how wide he holds his mouth while singing, he pretty much looks like he’s not singing just stood there with his mouth open. It’s pretty hypnotising trying to figure it out.
The Kairos dedicated ‘Lazy Lathagic‘ to Noel Gallagher, saying, he wishes he was Scouse anyway. Think this may have been a dig at how Noel ripped The Real People off in the early days, or maybe just tounge in cheek of Noel’s love of The Beatles, The Coral and The Zutons. Dempsey laughed pretty much as soon as he said this and followed up with “Noel’s gonna fill me in backstage now.“
New song ‘Punchline Fistfight‘ was played before ending with ‘Teetotal‘. Dempsey said before ‘Teetotal‘ that the country has been a horrible place to live in the last few days, in reference to the shitty riots, he also said everybody look after eachother. It was a beautiful quote, everybody in that field had no connection to the outside world so this was the first information some may have had of the mayhem that was happening outside of this field in Derbyshire. For such a young lad to had his head screwed on like that is refreshing.
Having seen them three times this year now, I’ll be catching them again two more times, making them the band I’ve seen the most in 2024. We’ll be catching them with The Outcharms at The Leadmill and again at Cafe Indie in Scunny.
The View
Photo by – Marc Whiffen – theindiemasterplan.co.uk
Indie favourites The View followed The Kairos on the main stage, frontman Kyle Falconer was clad in his now trademark short shorts and socks pulled up to his knees.
They produced a crowd pleasing set of bouncy indie classics. Starting with ‘Grace‘, it followed by ‘Wasted Little DJ’s‘, they had captured the crowd from the off.
With it being Sunday, the band brought out the tune titled ‘Sunday‘. By this point, Kyle had done his standing on one leg Flamingo stance multiple times, when not doing this, he moves like he has ants in his pants, so full of energy.
The set was closed with three big tunes, crowd favourites of ‘Same Jeans‘, Superstar Tradesman‘ and ‘Shock Horror‘. During ‘Shock Horror‘, Lewis McDonald from Shambolics was seen on the shoulders of somebody, belting back every word to the band, when Kyle realised it was him he burst out laughing.
At the end, Kyle climbed down the stage and gave some of the front row handshakes.
The Vaccines
Photo by – Georgina Hurdsfield – Tiny Raindrop Photography
It was time for a punchy set from The Vaccines, who managed to pack seventeen tunes into their set drawing the biggest and most compact crowd of the weekend. You could have been mistaken in thinking it was people wanting to get to the main stage for Noel Gallagher who followed, but it was definitely more dense than when Noel was actually on.
‘Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra)‘, ‘I Can’t Quit‘, ‘Post Break-Up Sex‘ and ‘Wetsuit‘ were straight out the trap and played within the first five tunes, the crowd were absolutely loving it and the band seemed to be having the time of their lives too.
Latest album ‘Pick-Up Full Of Pink Carnations‘ provided the most tunes in the set, these were mainly played in the middle but although they were newer, the gig never really lost pace during the likes of ‘Discount de Kooning (Last One Standing)‘, ‘The Dreamer‘, ‘Heartbreak Kid‘ and ‘Lunar Eclipse‘ which also featured a tease of ‘Molly’s Chamber‘ from Kings of Leon.
Finishing with ‘Teenage Icon‘, ‘I Always Knew‘, ‘If You Wanna‘ and ‘All My Friends Are Falling In Love‘. It was clear to see most of the crowd had just witnessed their highlight of the weekend, the band looked absolutely buzzing when they left the stage too.
Noel Gallagher
Photo by – Jake Haseldine
Now for the main attraction, the Godlike Genius that is Noel Gallagher. Noel likes to try and distance himself from the Oasis side of things but also knows that’s what the fans want the most, especially at a festival, he shows that by starting with ten solo tunes.
With the stage set covered in flowers, a Man City flag and a cardboard cutout of City’s Gaffa Pep Guardiola Noel opened with The Cure inspired ‘Pretty Boy‘, this set a dark atmosphere from the off.
Noel kept to the newer tunes in the first section and they dominated his solo side of the set. ‘Council Skies‘ ‘Open The Door, See What You Find‘ and ‘We’re On Our Way Now‘ we’re all played before a bit of a mix up of his other solo tunes.
‘In The Heat of the Moment‘ and the heartfelt ‘If I Had A Gun‘ came next, with the latter being the biggest sing along so far, this was also the most emotion showed from Noel and the audience.
After dedicating ‘AKA… What A Life‘ to Manchester City, which was followed by a mix of cheers and boos,
It was time for one of his most loved loved solo tunes ‘Dead in the Water‘. Amazingly, this was only a bonus track on Noel’s ‘Who Built The Moon?‘ album but every took to this track instantly so it’s always amazing to see him perform this, with the backdrop of waves on the screen. It’s a beautiful moment in the set.
After ten solo tunes it was now time to step back into Oasis territory, although he played ten tunes, I can personally say that I was fully captivated and wasn’t missing the Oasis tunes anyway. These days, Noel seems to shy away from the more conventional songs and in paticularly the Liam Gallagher sung ones.
‘The Masterplan’ is the Oasis b-side album, this is also most fans favourite album away from the big two. This at the time and still now is a mind bending record, like… How can you just see them tunes as b-sides, some have turned into Oasis classics over some of the big singles too.
Noel tapped into this album most before the encore. ‘Going Nowhere‘ and the beautiful ‘Talk Tonight‘ were the first two Oasis tunes, there is no denying that Noel is hard to top when he plays emotional driven tunes like ‘Talk Tonight‘. You hear vulnerability in his vocals, and this creates a goosebump feeling, you see everybody else feels this too, all hugging, arms in the air and with tears in their eyes, Noel is untouchable when he performs this way.
‘Whatever‘ wasn’t a b-side but it was a stand alone single between the releases of ‘Definitely Maybe‘ and ‘(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?‘ Although this is a Liam sung tune, Noel took over this on live duties pretty early on in Oasis, to be fair he does deliver it in a much better way too.
Two more b-sides came next ‘Half The World Away‘ which produced the biggest sing along so far in the set, amazingly, this was the b-side to ‘Whatever‘. ‘The Masterplan‘ was also played, personally this is one of my favourites and even the inspiration for the name of this website.
Sixteen tunes in and ‘Little By Little‘ was the first Oasis single that was also on an album to be performed, by this point, Noel had the crowd in palm of hands. He followed this up with a cover of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart‘ by Joy Division, this was the first ever tune Noel Gallagher learnt to play on guitar, this was my first time seeing him perform it too, whenever I’m there he seems to play ‘The Mighty Quinn‘, so I was buzzing to catch this finally, on the last night of his year long tour dates too.
The encore was one last time for the fans to have a big sing, not only for Noel’s set, but at the festival, it was like the final score during the credits on a movie that you have you just watched and loved. Noel never let anybody down and was never going to, ‘Stand By Me‘, ‘Live Forever‘ and of course ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger‘ filled the encore.
‘Live Forever‘ was the only fully Liam sung track that Noel did, ‘Live Forever’ was Liam’s both on record and live but the thing with Noel is, because he wrote these tunes, he has the ability to re-arrange these and perform them in a more emotional way that you would not get with Liam perform, he performs them fully in the Oasis way. I like both ways, it’s nice to have two versions of the same tune and they both serve their purpose and more importantly, whatever way they are performed the tune is always a highlight of the set.
The is no arguing ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger‘ is one of the biggest anthems in British history, so there isn’t a better way to end a festival than with that. Everybody knows all the words and when it comes on even in a bar, it turns the place onto a singalong, so to sing it out loud with Noel Gallagher himself is always a pure and beautiful moment. One of the best parts is when Noel steps away from the mic, letting the fans sing and he stands there taking it all in, imagine how that must feel, seeing 40,000 people with their arms around eachother singing your song back to you, you can see it means the world to him and you can also see it means the world to the fans belting it out, even more so when Noel has left the stage and you can still hear the fans singing acaplla with eachother whilst heading their separate ways into the night.
Summary
These four days at Y Not Festival were the best i’ve had musically in a longtime. Everything was run smoothly and perfect. Without nitpicking, I can’t find any negatives, it would be easy to pick on the toilet situation but that’s boring and you can run into an horrendous toilet absolutely anywhere if they are public.
The food had a great choice and mix, everything we tried we enjoyed and said that we would go back there again. The music was bang up our street, being big indie fans it was our ideal line up, we found new band’s that have turned into favourites, stepped out our comfort zone and them sets turned into our most memorable of the weekend. I can honestly say, I never walked away from a set and thought that was disappointing.
All the staff were always happy, seemed up for a laugh and always helpful. the fans who were there were always in really good spirits and we never saw any trouble or any signs of it either.
Y Not Festival takes place again in 2025 between 31st July to 3rd August. We will be there… Will you?
Tickets available here, with payment plans available too: https://ynotfestival.com/tickets/
I don’t charge any publishing fees.
If you would like to buy us a pint, then kindly donate using the link.
Thank You.
https://paypal.me/theindiemasterplan
