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Bearded Theory - Day One

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It’s a historic day in Dublin as we finally get an opportunity to decriminalise abortion. I’m celebrating by following in the footsteps of the 4000 Irish women each year who have to make the trip to England. Thankfully I have a happier reason for travelling ...

Bearded Theory festival is back at their iconic home of Catton Park nestled in the National Forest for their 11th outing. They have six main music stages; The Pallet, Magical Sounds, Woodland, Maui Waui, Convoy Cabaret and One Big Showcase. They have several smaller venues including Something Else Tea Tent, The Ship, Rogues Hideout, Magic Teapot, Alpaca and Creative Intentions.

The line-up is pretty great with legends like Robert Plant, The Jesus And Mary Chain, Jimmy Cliff, The Membranes and Therapy? Other festival staples like Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Jesus Jones, The Coral and Altern-8 join the relative newcomers like Sleaford Mods, Idles, Jake Bugg, Rews, Pins and The Winachi Tribe for a very promising three days of dancing and merriment.  The Winachis are headlining the Showcase stage on Saturday night, and we spoke with singer Liam Croker over here about the festival, headliner Robert Plant, and the band’s adventures in Hollywood.

The sun has been splitting the stones all week in Dublin, and it continues to do so through Wales, but by the time I reach Derbyshire, it is grey and drizzly. Good festival weather so. After a bit of exploring and sampling the strong cider, it’s time for The Coral on the main stage. The rain starts to come down harder just as they’re getting in to the swing of it, so it seems like a good opportunity to check out the sheltered Woodland Stage.

Rews have just started. The English/Northern Irish duo play a guitar/drums set that is heavy on the pop rock. They’re a bit like The White Stripes but with more of a groove and sans the pretension. The clearing is loosely populated and it’s worth getting to the front to experience Shauna Tohill’s gut-shaking guitars. They are obviously enjoying themselves here and, on this evidence, it’s easy to see why they are attracting so much attention recently.

There’s a significant coterie of photographers in the pit as Pins run through their linecheck. Perhaps it’s in hope of an appearance from punk godfather, Iggy Pop, who appears on their new single. Or perhaps it’s just because the Manchester quintet look, and sound, uber cool. In particular, the visual contrast between the synchronised, twin drummers at the back of the stage, clad in black and moving in concert, and the trio of singers in white out front, is immediately arresting. All of which would mean nothing if the music were boring, but the constant swirl and underlying menace of the tunes make them utterly compelling. They play with a deserved swagger. The venerable Mr. Pop has chosen his collaborators wisely once again. This crowd are bleeding deadly.

As the sun begins to set, ‘90s throwbacks Jesus Jones have the task of following Pins. They sound remarkably modern. They looked like taking on the world in the post Happy Mondays / Screamadelica era and had a number of transatlantic hits. Their combination of techno blips and baggy alternative tunes has (mostly) worn well. “Your parents might remember this”, quips lead singer Mike Edwards, as they break out ‘International Bright Young Thing’. ‘Right Here, Right Now’ and ‘Real Real Real’ still sound great and get the enthusiastic crowd moving, but the material from the new album, Passages, is much more interesting musically.

The festival sold out weeks in advance but it still feels spacious when moving around, until we try to leave the Woodland arena. With only one narrow entrance /exit point, it swiftly bottlenecks, and it takes significant intervention from the security staff to get people out. After a long day's travelling, the warm, dry tent is a welcome sight at the end of the evening. Tomorrow looks like the most exciting lineup of the weekend with Idles, Sleaford Mods, and the Winachi Tribe topping my list of must-sees.

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Bearded Theory Preview : Musos' Guide Chats With Winachi Tribe

Bearded Theory Spring Gathering is back at its iconic home of Catton Park nestled in the National Forest for their 11th outing. They have six main music stages being The Pallet, Magical Sounds, Woodland, Maui Waui, Convoy Cabaret and One Big Showcase. They have several smaller venues including Something Else Tea Tent, The Ship, Rogues Hideout, Magic Teapot, Alpaca, Creative Intentions to name just a few. We’ll be live tweeting Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (@musosguide), as well as bringing you reviews from all three days here at Musos' Guide.

The line-up is pretty great with legends like Robert Plant, The Jesus And Mary Chain, Jimmy Cliff, The Membranes and Therapy? Other festival staples like Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Jesus Jones, The Coral and Altern-8 join the relative newcomers like Sleaford Mods, Idles, Jake Bugg, Rews, Pins and The Winachi Tribe for a very promising three days of dancing and merriment.

The Winachis are headlining the Showcase stage on Saturday night, and we spoke with singer Liam Croker about the festival, headliner Robert Plant, and the band’s adventures in Hollywood.

Bearded Theory festival is one of our big dates. It’s one I’ve been wanting to go to. It’s really eclectic. The line up this year is mind blowing. I was thinking about going anyway just to watch the bands. We got an email form the Academy Of Music And Sound and we’d been picked out of 2000 applicants to headline their stage on Saturday night at Bearded Theory and wow, what an honour that is! From planning to go and watch to headlining one of the stages, we’re over the moon. It’s the introducing stage. We’re at that point now where we’re headlining those sort of stages. We’ve been around for about 3 and a half years now. We’re getting to that point where we’re headlining these stages and looking to break in to the bigger ones too.

I saw Robert Plant in March in Hollywood. We were touring in California and our manager and sound engineer brought us to see him in this really small theatre. There were only about 300 people in this wee theatre with Robert Plant. It was surreal. He was amazing. He’s still got it. And he had a pair of really tight pants on so it looked like he had a massive chopper. What a dude!

It’s been a hell of year. We went out to America in March and came home to play two really big home town shows and we just did a massive show in Warrington town centre last weekend. It was the Warrington Music Festival. Us and Fun Lovin’ Criminals were the two main acts. We did that on Saturday. We don’t get to play our home town much so it turned into a big carnival. Now we’re gearing up to do a full UK tour from May until September.

The first time we went out to America, we were working with Danny Saber, the producer. He’d worked with Black Grape, The Rolling Stones and David Bowie. We were working with Danny when we met Harry (Bridgen). Then Harry came on board and has been managing the band since.

We went back out here in 2016. We did the video for our single a room with a zoo with Tommy Flanagan from Sons Of Anarchy. Tommy’s a fan of the band. Our manager says Tommy approached him about being in the video. He said he had a little break in his schedule and if you can get the lads to LA within this time, I’d be able to do it. Tommy was great to work with. It looks like I’m riding through the desert on the back of that horse but that’s Tommy’s garden. It’s fucking enormous. That’s his actual horse too. It’s called Zeus. The video for ‘A Room With A Zoo’ and the horse is called Zeus, quite an interesting coincidence. The first scenes are done in East LA, in a rough neighbourhood, in a warehouse. The Tommy scenes were done at his ranch in Malibu. His next door neighbour is Will Smith or somebody. I went from a council estate in Warrington to being on a back of a big white horse in Tommy Flanagan’s back garden within a week. The craziest Tuesday afternoon I ever had. What an experience!

And then we went back again in March of this year and did a tour of California. We got a new guitarist and his first show was headlining The Harvard And Stone at Hollywood Boulevard, no pressure there! His name is Mike Bee. I’ve known Mike since we were in our late teens, a long time. Our old guitarist, Jamie, had to leave and Mike stepped in. It’s been a very easy transition into the band. We broke him in in America and he’s coming out with us again. It’s all good.

 

The equipment company, Behringer, we did a live session for them which you can see on YouTube. They launched a new series called artist profiles. They get a new artist and you talk about your career and stuff. We launched that series while we were in LA. It was an honour. We are going back. I can’t go into it too much but this year we’ll be back in LA for another round. While we were out there we did some work in the studio with a producer called John X. He’s worked with Danny, with all those big names. We did a track with him called ‘Funky But Chic’ and we’ll be launching that back in the States. In the coming months, all will be revealed.”

Bearded Theory runs May 24 - 27 and tickets are available here.

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