The mines in Newstead don’t see much life nowadays...

Until Headstock swings by to lighten up the countryside with all sorts of mixed genres of music and interesting characters.

To start the Friday off, Craig Charles made an appearance, busting out his remixes of famous songs such as Rage Against the Machines single ‘Killing In The Name Of’ which nearly had all of Headstock come to listen in pleasure. The energy was exploding in the audience, especially with Craig as he jumped, fist pumped and danced around the stage. Besides a few technical sound difficulties, the Friday was a great kick off and Craig Charles continued to play into the early hours of Saturday morning. 8/10.

As mentioned earlier, Headstock attracts all sorts of music, enter In Hindsight with their pop punk to mark the start of Saturday on the main stage.  An interesting line up was demonstrated by these guys, especially with their cover of ‘California Gurls’ made famous by Katy Perry. It was a huge hit with those who turned up.  Although they did not pull in a huge crowd, and didn’t necessarily light up the stage, they gave a good effort and were worth waking up for. 6/10.

Over at the Welfare stage you may have passed by the band Jimmy the Squirrel. Yes that was a band playing and not those street musicians you walk by. Jimmy the Squirrel took to the stage with their Jazz, Punk and Reggae which seemed to mix very well together, but if you managed to understand what the singer was singing, please contact me, as I didn’t. The lead guitarist may also want to focus more on playing the guitar than singing, as it was painful to watch as  his face turned red with every part sang. With that in mind, maybe they also forgot the crowd existed as they showed no crowd interaction whatsoever with any of the people dancing, or who were enjoying these guys, like true street musicians. 4/10.

Shortly after, Rugged Sound System made an appearance on the Welfare Stage and really did give an impressive performance with their nine piece band. Splashing out all hybrids of music, but mainly focusing on Jazz, Rugged Sound System really showed their talent with brilliant male and female singers, and fantastic musicians. It was like watching Black Eyed Peas in the 1920’s. But it was the intervals between the songs that really let it down for me as the front men decided to fight over who wanted the spotlight to speak. Come on guys, you can’t all have the spotlight! Keep to your set and ‘Don’t give up the fight!’ 9/10.

When I say to you ‘Dananananaykryod really brought the thunder on stage’ you may ask me either to say the sentence again or would understand that it literally flooded down with rain when Dananananaykryod began playing on the main stage. Besides the lousy weather, the band really showed musical talent with their pop (or ‘fight pop’ as they call it) genre of music, jumping off the stage to interact with the crowd, demonstrating their guitar tricks and managed to entertain the few people who were hardcore enough to stand out in the storm.  8/10.

To bring Saturday to a close, Echo and the Bunnymen appeared on the Main Stage. What else can be said about these guys as the crowd suddenly increased tenfold, to come see Echo and the Bunnymen, especially by now the rain had disappeared. It was an awesome end to the Saturday, with a great set list demonstrated and impressive energy from the whole band. Besides some terrible lighting on the main stage which made it nearly impossible to see any of the band, they still made a great performance. 8/10.

What do you get when you mix turn tables, guitars, reggae, rap, punk, pop and then finally add in talent? You get Alex Blood + The Diggers. Yes Alex Blood and his diggers turned up on stage with their wide range of music and busted out some pretty amazing rhymes, attracting a very large audience, whilst still showing great crowd interaction, which introduced a lot of their songs, especially the crowd’s favourite song ‘Racist Village.’ As I would like to describe what the experience of that song was, maybe you should come and hear it for yourself as you could probably imagine why I can’t. Awesome job lads, keep it up! And thanks for the chocolate bars you threw out to us in the crowd! 10/10.

Coming all the way from Berlin, Gemma Ray performed on the main stage and played some beautiful blues. Besides yelling at the sound technicians to turn the bass down on her guitar, and even start stabbing her guitar with a knife (I didn’t understand it either?!) she showed strong, yet light melody to the crowd of Headstock and backed it up with her amazing voice. 8/10.

Finally from Nottingham comes along Ferocious Dog with what they describe as Modern Folk, but stupidly quick. “It’s like music, fast, at one hundred miles per hour,” said Ferocious Dog. Great stage presence from the entire band, and many sing-a-long songs for everyone to enjoy and dance to.
What else do you want me to say? This is what folk music is all about, and Ferocious Dog is bringing it back. 9/10.

If I could sum up Headstock in one word, I would have to say it was Surprising.  It’s definitely a festival that a lot of people need to hear more about, as there are so many vast quantities of different music up here in Newstead. Sure the weather was annoying,- but it was ignored by the talent that was on stage. However, it was a shame that I didn’t get to see all bands due to the schedule being unreliable, a lot of bands were playing at the same time and as I caught a glimpse of the ending of a band that I thought sounded awesome, I was unable to hear anymore from them. As well as this, when I listen to music, I don’t play two songs at once, which was a problem for Headstock as all of the stages were trying to sound louder than each other. At some points, even the bands starting to exclaim, “Let’s try to sound louder than those guys over there!” which made it even worse, as now it becomes a competition and too much noise is being played at once. Headstock, you have impressed me and I look forward to seeing you again next year with more interesting music and different genres! 8/10.