FESTIVAL REVIEW + PHOTOS: 2000trees Festival 2024 – Friday

Want more 2000trees? Check out our full review and galleries of Thursday and Saturday.

As they come on to an edited montage of voice clips from Jaws, you begin to think that Mouth Culture might be ready to break beyond where they are. They certainly carry themselves with a poise far greater than that of no-name stage-openers; the full early doors crowd would attest to that. And in the months they’ve had to develop, a lot of the baby fat from early on has been converted into notable muscle. The wavelengths of grunge and alt-punk fill out the Axiom effortlessly, and with a bravado that those sounds typically seem averse to. The groove and unabashed fun are worn prominently, and frontman Jack Voss’ mobility and expression of motion make all the difference in grabbing attention and convincing that Mouth Culture are just about ready to boil over. We’re gonna need a bigger stage.

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King Nun bring the fire of last year’s Lamb to the Axiom with barely an ember extinguished, as they continue a run of dynamic, sorely underrated alt-rock.

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There’s always one like The Rumjacks, it seems. The idea, you’d imagine, is to plug in an obvious folk-punk party-starter, which works like gangbusters in the moment and dissipates the second it’s over. At least it’s a little memorable as a rare appearance of the mandolin and tin whistle on the main stage, and they sound fresh enough to win over even the most curmudgeonly of critics (hi). You can acknowledge it as a one-note frivolity while still appreciating the fun, not less because frontman Mike Rivkees looks like he belongs in Rancid and there’s a distinct uncanniness whenever he busts out his little whistle. The songs do start to blur together, but as this year’s sole entrants in the folk-punk / Dropkick Murphys loop, basically left to carry it all themselves, that’s fine.

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As the combination of mild buzz and a decently attended 2000trees set has proven in the past, IDestroy are probably going to make significantly more headway sooner rather than later. It wouldn’t be undeserved when they hit all the right beats with their meat-and-potatoes punk, impressing the most in a weighty bass tone and an outspoken steadfastness you’d find on a song like Headphones. In terms of finding their ace in the whole, they’re not quite there yet; Bec Jevon and Nicola Wilton-Baker darting about on their own paths is most combustible they seem visually, and that’s literally in the set’s opening moments. On the other hand, there’s never anything that brings this to a screeching halt, and the good stuff is plainly there in a capacity that IDestroy can easily build on. A bit of time is all that’s needed.

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On paper, As December Falls could be the ultimate festival band. They’re accessible; they pull in a big crowd; they know all the right angles to work said crowd. But they’re also…not very interesting, within or beyond that. You notice it most when their banter and interaction feels so scripted, like how calls for singalongs and pits feel like the exact things a band this size is supposed to say. At least with the performance aspect, their genial pop-rock is sold with conviction to burn, and Bethany Curtis gives off the bubbly, excitable persona that clearly loves being onstage. The instincts on Join The Club or Carousel are good, if lifted so liberally from the 2010s generation’s playbook that As December Falls’ own contributions are seldom apparent. Despite that, the number of crowd-surfers and general enthusiasm levels suggest it goes down well. At least the energy and sugar-rushing brio are mirrored there, regardless of how short-lived it might be afterwards.

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If any band had worse luck than Crawlers this weekend, they probably just saw the sense to not play. They show up drastically late, a consequence of the wheel of their van flying off on the M6, which almost killed them, according to vocalist Holly Minto. That leaves them with a few minutes to play just four songs, and an overwhelmingly noticeable frustration at how big a botching has gone on. The sad thing is there’s clearly work put in to still blow away the cobwebs that have built up in their absence, regardless of how futile it might be. Minto casts a real performer’s silhouette, helping to zero in on the theatrical elements of indie and pop-rock that wears its viral, mainstream potential on its sleeve. The key thing is how it’s never dragged down by that; you feel that Crawlers have more to offer than ephemeral, disposable shorts, even if the irony of that coming from a set truncated to a stump isn’t lost. The fact there’s a resounding impression left is still a win for Crawlers, no matter how much nicer it would’ve been to see it play out on less unfortunate terms.

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Is it fair to call Nova Twins the Queens of 2000trees? Like…is it any contest at this point? They’ve made a good dent in world domination up to now, so returning to the festival that arguably provided their first big boost is like a homecoming. Add on how this is Nova Twins in full victory lap mode, and you can practically feel the power radiating from them, even a few dozen rows back. Part of that is the music itself, naturally, which has reached a point where the grinding, groove-heavy alt / rap / punk / garage / further genre qualifier is theirs to monopolise. But the duo themselves are what make this band so special, not in the least because Amy Love has a swagger and snarl that’s unmatched in the British scene (and probably beyond). But with the image of her and Georgia South in their matching silver dresses, filling a sparsely-populated stage space on their own as hundred-foot pillars of commitment to style and substance, rarely has a band who’ve emerged in the last few years felt this unbeatable. Bow down for the queens and let their triumph continue.

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You get more out of one song from Bears In Trees than you do from other bands’ entire sets. Said song is Hot Chocolate, boasting not only a keytar solo (and a pit which is “2000trees history”, as opined by guitarist Nick Peters), but also a full-band dance routine, choreographed and everything. It’s nothing close to tight, but the exuberance is the whole point, a statement lodged into the fabric of Bears In Trees’ mere existence. Even on a vector of poppiness that isn’t the norm here, the response can’t be anything else than overwhelmingly emphatic when this feels so earnest and joyful. This is the purest, most wholesomely genuine strain of emo-pop imaginable, built off added ukulele and sweetened synths and the interplay between vocalists Iain Gillespie and Callum Litchfield. Oh, and just plainly great songs, like I Wanna Be Calm which might have some of the most addictive hook-work the Cotswolds will see all weekend. It’s simply joyous in a way that’s difficult to quantify.

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By now, the presence of Nikki Brumen is so ensconced in what Blood Command is that it really couldn’t change. You just know there are people who’ll be down the front nice and early to see whether she’ll gyrate in front of them, or throw a glob of spit on them, because it’s the expected thing. If that’s the case, there’ll be some delighted little horn-dogs about today, though for the more…ahem, principled among us, that delight is down to Blood Command being on top form. For post-hardcore designed to be blasted at max volume and have its crushing nature weaponised, you won’t go far wrong here. Blood Command are in their element, especially when channelling a rattling, sweltering tautness for Saturday City, or letting Brumen’s paint-stripping scream fully let loose. Yeah, everything about it reads as your ‘average’ Blood Command set, but that’s still a good six-and-a-half foot above plenty others, at least.

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Want something truly visceral and volatile? Well, CLT DRP’s electro-shock take on punk has them bring that to the NEU Stage in spades.

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“At this point, we should probably call this place Vylan-Fest.” So says Bob Vylan’s leading Bobby, in the exact demeanour of a guy whose last album was called Humble As The Sun. Still, considering their vested effort at upending every traditional machination that the music industry holds sacred, the bragging rights are earned. That’s not even considering how monumental a sub-headline slot feels for an act so vocal about progressive values, in a merging of punk and hip-hop that fixates on the power of both. On another day, at another festival, a band whose primary stage prop is the Palestine flag—and who’d lead a chant of “Free Palestine”—would not be given a slot this high. But as Bobby says himself, independence is the tenet that Bob Vylan thrive on, and it’s what’s made them such a potent force. The feel and attitude is unquestionably punk, with no concept of restraint or engineered choreography.

At the same time, there’s enough showmanship to where the scale isn’t drowning everything out. Character and sense of humour isn’t even up for question—‘the Slam Dunk Hooligans’ added to their expanding list of aliases particularly tickles—while the now-customary mediation and breathing exercises as the set begins already has a dedicated following to join in. The cult of personality around Bob Vylan is fully formed, with enough in the output to back it up fully. For an act whose only live elements are vocals and drums, there’s never a disconnect or an issue with fidelity when the guitars are piped in. If anything, it just puts more focus on the energy elsewhere, and how force of will and performance turns this into the most consistently live atmosphere of any set this weekend. Once again, from every angle and with every new step forward, Bob Vylan straight-up can’t be stopped. Guess Vylan-Fest does have a ring to it after all.

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It’s been a little under a year since Hot Milk released their debut full-length, and the global force they’ve been threatening to become since day dot is practically in place now. They were in San Francisco just 12 hours ago; prior to that, they were touring the US with a little band called blink-182. For most bands with a docket like theirs, nipping over to 2000trees might seem like a trifle, stage headline set or no. But when there’s not a hint of rust or fatigue, or the notion that isn’t potentially pivotal new ground for them to tread, Hot Milk are running away with it, as per. They sound terrific, having amassed a cache of anthems that feels unbeatable among their crop, and completing the metamorphosis into wall-crushing genre-blenders with a resolute pop-rock heart.

Horror Show is a bomb-drop of an opener, flanked down the line by the seismic brightness of Alice Cooper’s Pool House, and Zoned Out which seeks to test the integrity of this tent’s material with how much it wants to scrape the sky. All the while, there’s a look and feel that’s grungier and grimier than it once was. This is Hot Milk embracing their ginormous, loud rockstar impulses, and doing so shamelessly. When Han Mee isn’t shackled to her guitar, there’s an energy in how she prowls around that adds another couple of feet’s worth of presence. She’s never been shy at letting that brashness loose—she wants the pit to be “as wide as [her] arsehole on poppers” at one point, which…okay—but that’s turned into something titanic now. Truthfully, it’s been that way for a while; we’re just now seeing the full effects of Hot Milk settling into the shoes of the giants they’ve become. Turns out those fit them pretty spectacularly.

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A full year after the performance that gave them their running start, Simon Neil and Mike Vennart bring Empire State Bastard to 2000trees to simultaneously close out the Cave, and level it through animalistic sludge and noise.

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Words by Luke Nuttall

Photos by Faye Roberts (Instagram)