This was my first experience of this rock festival in a holiday camp, guaranteeing no weather interrupted performances, and food and drink, and toilets on tap.

I offer this as a record rather than as a  review,

On Thursday evening  at:

 8pm  “Mr Spanky &  The Hipthrusters” featuring the wonderful Rev Kenny Petrie whose romp through classic rock covers was well received, and well done ,the ideal festival opener.

9.25 “ Telegram Sam” serviceable but too reliant upon imploring the crowd to Boogie. Not as good as T Rexstacy

10.50pm The Upbeat Beatles who were surprisingly good majoring on their 3 minute hit singles from the early years. You forget what a great pop band they were.

Friday

 12.30pm Money for Nothing, had the thankless task of opening proceedings to a just assembling and hung over crowd. Totally proficient,  but included a sax player – which is anathema to all die hard fans. An odd set list eschewed  the first two albums and Expresso love. Opening with Sultans of Swing and closing with Brothers in Arms. Enjoyable but a mis fire, wrong time slot, wrong running order.

5.40pm Sex Pistols Expose the hour long set exposed the thinness of the Pistols material with a slew of covers unnecessarily thrown in and “ Belsen was a gas” unforgivably given an airing, Just because you can doesn’t men you should. Visually strong, musically adequate, but short of decent material.

9.20 Boot led Zeppelin were magnificent, Great set list, great performance. Awesome.

9.45 Maet Live. A preposterous Meat Loaf tribute which the crowd loved and I didn’t.

Saturday

12.30pm Straighten Out suffered the same challenges as Money for Nothing the day before. An initially thin crowd,  hung over and unresponsive . The  boys compounded this by a lacklustre performance of a set list which on paper should have been  brilliant, but performed,  was insipid. Very disappointing, I would not see them again

1.50pm  Fleetwood  Bac  Outstanding.

The one hour slot was totally insufficient and shamed straighten out by energising the crowd.

3.10 Green Days  I don’t like Green day and enjoyed their tribute clones even less, unlike the rest of the audience, who loved it

4.30 The Kinks Experience. Fronted by an energetic young band they were terrific with a shrewdly chosen mix of the hits and the best  of the rest. Outstanding. They played as if their lives depended upon it.

8.40 Rainbow in Rock. Exceptionally wonderful with a scintillating “Catch the rainbow”.

Sunday

12.30 Sack Sabbath – who cares about the early slot they blew the place apart!

A fantastic weekend full of fantastic music and fantastic people. A special shout out to the stage crew who unbelievably kept the show times on point and the tech working.

The whole point is to experience a smorgasbord of music. Some will be from tributes where you barely remember the originals, some from much anticipated tributes, and some original music. They will delight, frustrate and entertain in unexpected and unequal measure, but will always leave you with a smile on your face.

Roll on 2025