Getdown Services and English Teacher duke it out for band of the day, but competition was coming in from all directions with The Maccabees, Primal Scream and many more.
After the back and forth of Thursday, Friday marked the start of the festival as a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book with multiple choices of what to listen to for most of the day. We went in with a rough plan but made a few changes along the way.
Southern Heights opened music on the Truck Stage, another of the Band App winners. A five-piece indie-rock band from Essex. There is almost a Santana like sound to the impressive single ‘Charlie’s Tune.’ The three released tracks so far all have a slightly different vibe, suggesting some decent range.
Samuel Hale made his first single whilst still at school and the amount of attention it gathered in Wales and beyond led him to form a band to play live and build on the success. Shale were born. They were on the Market Stage and were mightily impressive. Hale reminds Reading Indie Life of a young Tim Booth from James, both in (at times) musical style and appearance. He is a lively presence, and the occasional burst of cowbell adds to the joy of the occasion. Hale dedicates a song to the people of Palestine and Iran. They are doing a headline tour in September and are well worth seeking out.
On the Truck Stage, The Love Buzz add to the weight of good to excellent bands from Ireland on show this weekend. They were excited that Primal Scream were on later as they are a big influence on the band. Their singer, Kieran Hurley, encourages the audience to take part in a spot of primal scream therapy and has huge chunks of the crowd screaming along en masse. Their tunes are a scuzzy mix of lo-fi meets power rock. Think Weezer meets Pavement via The Dandy Warhols.
We had dimly heard of The Slow Country prior to Truck, but the performance confirmed this is another band to get on your radar. Another band that were blown away by the size of the audience that turned up to see them. They said they normally play in sweaty basements. They deserve bigger and brighter stages on this showing. They have a few tracks out on streaming, but in the flesh come across more strongly as a country-rock outfit. A seven-piece band, with several multi-instrumentalists, gives them a rich and varied sound.
The heat was particularly fierce on the Friday and there was not a lot of respite from it at the Truck Stage. It made us grateful we had planned more of a tent day. We did make an exception for Girl In The Year Above. A band that just felt like they had appeared out of nowhere when they had a track put on the soundtrack to the recent Peaky Blinders film. They had about 10 listeners on Spotify at the start of that day and have rapidly jumped up to over 40,000 since then.
That track in question was an impressive cover of Teardrop. Jennifer Ball introduces it as, “We did a song for a film called Peaky Blinders. It is a cover of a very niche underground band called Massive Attack.” Cue plenty of laughter from the crowd. Teardrop is such an impressive piece of work you must have guts to have a crack at it. That they put a stamp on it and make it sound at least as impressive as the original is some accomplishment. They have a couple of other tracks out, ‘Ode To The Glory Days’ both on record and played live here confirms them as a very special outfit. An Irish/Cornish band with a mix of influences including folk music.
We stopped in on Camille Jansen, who was performing with just a guitarist on the This Feeling Stage. Having enjoyed the recorded music from this French/British artist, who had come over from Paris for today, we were fairly underwhelmed by the live sound and quickly moved on. Much better were Projector. The band have been going for at least nine years and have a fine catalogue of tracks to pick from. At times it felt like Pixies meets the B52s. On other tracks it felt much more punk rock with a touch of Joy Division.
Having two vocalists gives them options. Edward Ensbury does more of the work, though Lucy Sheehan takes point on some tracks and their best ones tend to have both duelling back and forwards. ‘Tastes Like Sarah’ is one of the best examples of this. Sheehan says she is going to quit her job, to a round of cheering. “It has nothing to do with the band. It doesn’t make any money.”
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 as she walks off. This Brighton based group were one of our favourite discoveries of the festival.
It is back into the blazing sun to see Divorce. This current run of shows are the first since Adam Peter-Smith and Kasper Sandstrom left the band. The core singing duo of Tiger Cohen-Towell and Felix Mackenzie-Barrow remain in place which means the sound of the band is unchanged. They boldly launch with ‘Hangman,’ one of their best tracks. It reminds you exactly why they are such a talent. There is a new track, ‘Bone Museum,’ which suggests they are still hard at work despite Mackenzie-Barrow having been extra busy this year with his really good Book Of Churches solo album.
They of course finish with the beautiful ‘Antarctica.’ There is an irony here when Mackenzie-Barrow finishes by saying, “I don’t think I have ever been hotter on stage.”
Once again we find ourselves not watching Good Health Good Wealth and we really will make up for this rudeness at some point. On this occasion the chance to catch The Faroe Island’s greatest musical band, Joe & The Shitboys, is too much of an opportunity to pass up. Describing themselves as queer vegan shitpunks, the half hour that follows is amongst the most extraordinary that Reading Indie Life have come across watching live music.
They blast off with ‘Shitboys Theme’ and never look back. Iggy Pop loves these guys, and it only takes a few seconds to realise why. This is incendiary rock and roll at its absolute purest. Joe (Fríði Djurhuus) tells us, “We had never heard of Truck Festival before we got invited. We didn’t know so many people were into trucks in the UK. We have nothing like this in the Faroe Islands. We don’t really have people like you either. You look like a bunch of hippies.” Second track ‘Drugs R’4 Kidz’ continues to show that these guys give zero f***s about mainstream success.
By the third track the tent is a maelstrom of moshing, some of the biggest circle pits of the weekend taking up the centre of The Nest. The energy they generate is just incredible. ‘Life Is Great You Suck’ and ‘Macho Man Randy Savage’ keep it right up there. Joe comes out into the crows and it is just a beautiful moment.
The finish off where they started with the Shitboys Theme. Everybody should experience this band. Whatever random place they turn up at in the UK, if you love garage-punk-rock you need this in your life.
The Cribs are in fine form currently. We only sampled a few minutes of them here as we were between Joe & The Shit Boys and trying to get a decent spot for Getdown Services. The ten minutes we did listen to were top notch though.
Getdown Services are one the most word-of-mouth hyped groups on the circuit right now. Trying to describe what they actually are, and what they do, is one of the more challenging tasks in music journalism. They are two guys, Ben Sadler and Josh Law. Josh generally plays guitar. Ben is often just singing, but also does keyboard and button pushing where required. They barely stop between tracks as the backing track guides the pace of their set, giving it an almost relentless quality.
There is groove based indie-rock, bits of disco and eighties synth vibes. There is a spoken word dance angle that fans of The Streets and Anthony Szmierek will appreciate. Above everything though there is fun and humour. After ten minutes we weren’t entirely convinced. It felt a little too close to a Butlin’s show gone wrong. We were contemplating going to find something else. We stayed though, and over the next thirty-five minutes we started to get it. It not only grew on us, it swept us away. Yes, you will pogo on command. Yes, you will do the response part of the call and response vocals. Yes, you will do obligatory dance moves. Yes, you will leave and spread the word about these two sweaty guys from a fitness video gone horribly wrong. ‘Dog Dribble’ is quite an incredible ending to this bizarre experience. There is a new album out on the 14th of August. It feels like an essential listen for 2026.
Thankfully, the worst of the heat of the day is dying down as Primal Scream are coming out on stage. Bobby Gillespie understood the remit today. Bash out the hits and keep it tight to the classic albums. ‘Love Insurrection’ is the only nod towards their output in the last 15 years. As ‘Loaded’ starts, Truck erupts. They follow it up with ‘Swastika Eyes,’ the only pick from our favourite Primal Scream album, EXTRMNTR. A continuation of their 25th anniversary playthroughs of that album in full would have gone down extremely well with us, probably not many others though. We are off for a good spot for English Teacher so unfortunately miss out on ‘Movin’ On Up,’ ‘Country Girl’ and ‘Rocks.’ It still gives us a twinge to think we walked away from that incredible trinity.
English Teacher don’t have those kind of sing along good time tracks in their locker, at least not yet. What they are though is one of the most interesting bands in the UK. Their work is thoughtful and intelligent. Songs go off in unexpected directions; time signatures do strange things. As we missed them at Reading Festival back in 2023, thanks to a stage clash with The Amazons, we have to be at the Market Stage for this one.
They begin with ‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab,’ the groovable funk getting the crowd moving as much as they do for pretty much the whole set. ‘You Blister My Paint’ showcases the vulnerability of Lily Fontaine’s vocals and hits everyone present hard in the feels. She is an amazing talent. The rest of the band are not too shabby either, a range of instruments and involvement going on in different tracks.
They apologise for the lack of new new music being released but promise us it is coming soon. To confirm it, they treat us to three different new songs. None of them lept out as being massive singles, but they maintain the very high quality of the songwriting from the first album. ‘R&B’ and ‘Nearly Daffodils’ are a stunning end to the show. As they disappear, many in the crowd are exclaiming things like, “Oh wow.” Oh wow indeed, these guys are one of the most important bands in the UK right now.
The Maccabees are just starting up as we walk out of the Market Stage. They came to this set in a strange position. The initial surge of excitement following the announcement of the reunion at the end of 2024 has died back a little, they haven’t got into the studio yet to make something new, so it remains a nostalgia fest. They are without doubt a very high quality band, yet they feel light on those songs you can instantly name – compared to the rest of the headliners this week, who all have huge hits in the locker.
‘Love You Better’ and ‘X-Ray’ are probably the highlights. They finish with ‘Pelican.’ The crowd are appreciative and it brings to an end a fantastic, triumphant day of music. Well done Truck. Who was the act of the day? For us, Joe & The Shitboys narrowly edged out the very strong competition.
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