Truck Festival (not a festival trucks, don’t be mislead), is one of the many small festivals which lie closeted away in relative anonymity. The brilliant thing about this is that because it is so small, the campsite is in close proximity. This means frequent trips back to the tent for necessary provisions such as alcohol isn’t too much hassle. Everything is reasonably priced because it is heavily supported by local charities and the bands come out and mingle which means you can just randomly run into them while putting mustard on your burger.   


 

Truck festival spreads a very small amount of space, giving it the unique feel of being part of a small, almost secret festival society. It is set against the gorgeous background of the Oxfordshire countryside, it’s a real plus and unlike Reading there isn’t an industrial estate in sight. Just on the edge of the small village of Steventon in Oxfordshire, the village itself is the picture of British beauty, cricket games on the green, small ivy coloured buildings and a family of ducks trying to cross the road. The festival is just a short walk from the centre of the village at the back of a cluster of farm buildings, lending the festival its quaint ‘Old McDonald’ feel, including a selection of hay bales as seats and a barn for a stage.

The Barn Stage is an intense venue. Set in a large stone building which doubles the rest of the year as an actual barn, the stage is dark and has at times the almost eerie feel of a large underground meat cellar. But the acoustics are brilliant and the slightly sinister edge just lends a more unique mood to the venue, setting it apart from the other of the site’s stages, which are more apt for lazing in the sunshine and more resemble a circus big top than a festival tent.  In fact, the second stage, (the yellow and red striped marquis) is positioned at the entrance to the site, right next to a tepee where in the evenings there are examples of fire twisting and various other circus schoolings, not unlike the circus. In fact this little section is almost a miniature festival in itself boasting a beach in a miniature marquis, which looks like the daughter of its’ neighbour and a bar with real sofas and cocktails (a luxury after sleeping on a hard tent canvas). If anything this mini-prefestival is actually more intense than the main arena.

Once you’ve passed over the little bridge, you come out into the main arena, or field adorned with little white tents. The stalls are pretty much standard festival stalls, vintage clothes, Middle Eastern jewellery, doughnuts, (which were pretty damn good), and a merchandise tent selling vinyl’s and other goodies from the acts. The main stage, although not overly large, and without big television screens, is pretty much never packed out because everyone is too busy picnicking, or sunbathing. It’s perfect; it means you can actually see who you’re listening to fairly close to for once without the fear of getting crushed to death in a spontaneous mosh pit. In fact you don’t have to worry about any of the troublesome ‘big festival worries.’ The food is reasonably priced, there is no excess of fourteen year olds trying to get their first taste of liberty, in fact there are quite a number of families in attendance and this makes the atmosphere oh so much more ‘casual beer in the sunshine’, as opposed to ‘is someone puking in that Portaloo?’  

The main pro-Truck point is the bands. Although they have the necessary known headliners, such as this year’s, which was The Temper Trap, Mystery Jets and Tim Minchin, they also have the collection of smaller hidden gems. Although every festival has their small still unknown artists, Truck really caters a specific sound of music, tucking rising stars modestly into the bill for your own personal discovery. Particular acts which stuck out were Guillemots, who played a lively set, headlining the second stage, despite the Fyfe Dangerfield having a husky throat and 65daysofstatic, a band who faithfully have played Truck for the last few years.

This year saw the band headlining the main stage, as opposed to their usual digs in The Barn and boy did they rock it. Jumping writhing, screaming, interacting with the audience. He was even kind enough to pull some brilliant poses for my camera.  As music genres go, they were not my kind of music, playing what I would describe as electro-rock, but either way they pulled it off perfectly as did so many different acts, all collaborating under one festival at various different times, to create what I can safely say is one of the most special little festivals I’ve been to in a long time.  


 Aly x