Legend or landfill? Truck Festival highlights the issue with festival bookings
“We should’ve made two signs: Legend or landfill. Then, each set, hold up the judgement,” my friends and I joked on the way to Truck Festival, a mainstay of the UK summer circuit in Oxford. It has all the makings of a perfect weekend; it’s easy enough to get to, small enough to make it stress-free, but big enough to provide plenty of antics and acts to keep ticket holders busy. It also radiates a lovely community atmosphere as local organisations cook up meals for under a tenner to feed the merriment. However, much like the rest of festivals of around its size, it’s also marred by stagnation as the headliners are names who have lingered around too long, becoming by far the least interesting slot of their respective days.
In short, they’re acts that fell deep into the indie landfill; the name assigned to the dark pit where bands you loved at age 16 should go to die but instead seem to live on like zombies. They’re bands that blew up back in the 2010s with a scattering of very of-their-time tracks that sounded absolutely incredible when they came out, blasting out of indie club night speakers or venue sound systems, but now just hang in the air like the pong of sweaty nostalgia.
Yet still, those same bands, despite retaining minimal interest when it comes to their newer music, somehow have the fortress of UK prime time slots locked down. They’re everywhere, and they’re just as unshakable in 2024.
But as the weekend got underway, and I stood brandishing an imaginary sign, the concept of what makes something indie landfill fodder became more and more nuanced. On Saturday night, it seemed that while Wet Leg felt too new to be relegated to the pit, their lack of new music and enduring reliance on ‘Chaise Longue’, which already feels like a nostalgia trip, sees them prematurely teetering on the edge.
Jamie T has undeniably fallen right in as his Friday night headline set is so poor that the high-energy crowd were desperately attempting to make a good night out of the musician’s weak performance, singing loud over the top of him to try and drown out his own vocals and improve on the whole thing. Unpolished in the extreme, despite a promising album release back in 2022, his set was haunted by amateurishness and devoid of vibrant inspiration. A swathe of the crowd fled to a smaller stage, running away as if to save themselves from falling right into the pit with him.
However, it’s only when running away from the indie landfill that the true legends of the weekend were found. Truck Festival was a treasure trove of some of the most exciting new acts the UK has to offer at the moment. It was a busy weekend for legends in the making who, time and time again, upstaged their so-called superiors.
On the opening night, The Mysterines kicked that energy off immediately with a set so polished and so powerful that it was easy to envisage them back again soon as headliners. Rightfully placed on the main stage, it’s proof that new bands can live up to bigger scale and should be given the chance to. They’re a band that knows how to put on a good old-fashioned rock show but do it with a freshness that should see them racing forward as leaders of a new class. The same can be said for NewDad, who put on a stand-out set on Friday where a stunning cover of The Cure’s ‘Just Like Honey’ blended seamlessly into a setlist of their own shoegaze-coated grunge. Their album Madra stands as one of the most faultless debut releases this year, if not for several years prior, so they’re exactly the type of new act festivals should be backing. Once again placed on the main stage, it felt like every time Truck took a chance on an up and comer – a sign that festival bookers country-wide should be taking note of, and Truck should continue to build on.
However, this rivalry between new and old, exciting and established, came to a messy head when the festival faultered on any commitment to the cause. Brighton’s Lime Garden were booked for the main stage, pulling in a brimming crowd even at an early afternoon timeslot. However, that same day The Pigeon Detectives were booked on a smaller stage, as if the festival were trying to commit to the kind of future-facing lineup they should be aiming for. But last minute, the plug was pulled. Set times where changed, line ups were reshuffled, soundcheck ran over and tech issues meant that the ones-to-watch only got to play three songs in the end, all to make space for the past-their-prime 2000s troupe.
Visibly and understandably annoyed, Lime Garden where then relegated to a smaller stage to be able to play a full set later on to a packed-out crowd where the hubbub in the audience has lauded it as one of the most anticipated sets of the weekend. After a faultless set that proves their position as one of the UK’s finest new names to note, they quip, “I’m sure we’ll be headlining next year!”
Therein lies the whole problem with not just Truck, but with most festivals of their scale. How are bands on the come up supposed to come up to the top if older acts won’t let go? How are people supposed to graduate up to bigger stages and better time slots if festivals won’t prioritise them? Of course, older fans have their space on the festival circuit, but who’s to say that they won’t enjoy something new?
From the word on the group, they’re more than open to it. As the crowd left the sweaty tent where another buzzing new name to note, Fat Dog, delivered their now infamous live set chaos, an older attendee declared, “That’s mainstage energy!” The band had kept their overflowing crowd in a half-hour-long circle pit, creating the kind of atmosphere that should have over big stage rather than being relegated in favour of bigger acts who haven’t managed to get a crowd that riled up for some time now, and if they manage it at all, it’s for one hit only.
Across the weekend, it felt like any number of new acts like English Teacher, Been Stellar, Mandrake Handshake and plenty more could have headliner potential. But how is that ever supposed to be found out if the chances are still being taken away by bands who have been rotting away at the top for too long?
