All the news from down at Hill Farm!
Friday 6:25pm
End the festival, Joe & The Shitboys have just won it. Insane energy over at The Nest…
The Cribs are on and sounding great, but we are off to get near the front for Getdown Services.
Friday 4:55pm
Projector were another great choice from the options. At times Pixies meets B52s, at others proper fast punk rock. Lucy Sheehan starts having bass issues towards the end of the set. They are fixed just in time for her to petulantly fling the offending instrument to the ground at the end of the final track.
A bit of that cloud briefly showed for the start of Divorce but then the sun returned to roast both band and audience. It was a lovely, but all too short, set.
Friday 3:10pm
There is a running theme today of bands being completely blown away by the size of the audience that has turned up. Truck definitely looks for talent and then gives it a slot. Truck audiences either do their research or are willing to give things a listen.
The Slow Country continue this theme by saying they normally play in sweaty basements. They deserve bigger and brighter stages on this showing. More of a rockier country sound at times than we were expecting.
We braved the fierce Main Stage sun to catch 20 minutes of Girl In The Year Above. There is no doubt this lot are a talent. Their Massive Attack cover from the Peaky Blinders film goes down a storm. We have to find a tent to take cover in after it finishes though.
Friday 1:30pm
Southern Heights opened the Truck Stage well before we were really impressed by Shale. The front man was giving off young Tim Booth from James vibes.
Don’t get caught loitering in the walk ways between areas or you may get fined like Reading Indie Life did! I am not 100% convinced they were real cops, especially as one of them was carrying a bubble blower!
Friday 8:40am
Anyone who added the Thursday entry to their ticket chose well yesterday. Great vibes across the site and some great music to get things going. Today The Maccabees are your headline act. The weather looks a little kinder than previously suggested with more cloud in the afternoon, though could still hit 28 degrees. Bands on the Truck Stage were sweltering yesterday.
After the easy back and forth of yesterday, today is where the tough decisions start. So many good bands to go and see, quite a few clashing. We may be doing a lot of coin flipping today. The first one is between Shale and Adore at 12:45. Adore are punk rock, Shale are more straight up indie-guitar music but very melodic. There is a similar style clash between the feminist punk of Twat Union and The Slow Country’s Windmill Scene mix of folk and rock at 1:45.
There have been some minor tweaks to the schedule on Saturday so the The Lottery Winners no longer overlap with Bleech 9:3 and The Rosadocs. Silver Gore have been dropped into the big gap in the Saturday line-up for The Nest which has adjusted other timings slightly.
Thursday 10:30pm
CMAT delivered in style as the opening headliner and a very high bar has been set for the rest of the festival!
Thursday 8:20pm
The Northern invasion was strong on the This Feeling stage today. Montello are another classically styled indie band. Lizzie Esau really impressed, a lot rockier than we were expecting and some quality new tunes on show.
Everything Everything did exactly what you would expect of them. Their fans were belting out the words to all the hits in some style.
Thursday 6:10pm
As suspected Leazes were the first on fire set of the day. The Newcastle band’s frontman was repping a proper Geordie perm mullet, a nice thing to see on the sad week that Kevin Keegan passed away.
Etta Marcus bought a touch of class to the Main Stage. She was rather chuffed as this marked her first outing on the Main Stage of any festival.
Thursday 4:30pm.
Heidi Eldest has officially kicked off live music at Truck Festival 2026.
Here are your official merchandise choices.
And the bar prices:
Thursday 2:00pm
The campsites are well and truly open with lots of people setting up. Traffic remains okay. The road between the Chilton exit of the A34 and Steventon is looking the busier route right now, not helped by a few local roadworks.
Thursday 11:40am
Traffic is currently pretty good around the area. There is a 10 minute delay getting off the Marcham Interchange of the A34.
Thursday 9:05am
Other than on Friday where Sia Raw have been replaced by the excellent local band Cheap Suits, on the This Feeling stage, we have not spotted any other changes. Let us know if you see anything!
The weather forecast for the week is a bit of a mixed picture. A high of 27 degrees centigrade today, but there should be plenty of cloud cover so it won’t feel as fierce. A similar mix of cloud and sunshine on Friday where it could hit a peak of 29 degrees, so don’t forget the sun hat and sun cream! The weekend was being suggested as showery a few days ago, but rain has now reduced to a possible window between the early hours and midday on Sunday. It should be a little bit cooler after the heat of Thursday to Saturday at around 24 degrees.
Today is all about CMAT. If you have an early entry ticket you have chosen extremely well. There are no clashes today, so all the music can be caught with acts alternating between the main Truck Stage or the This Feeling stage. Leazes and Everything Everything feel like the other must catch sets today.
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