Holly Reading steers a course for Steventon - for the ever-impressive Truck festival

  • Truck
  • Hill Farm, Steventon

This year’s Truck Festival saw a veritable feast of musical delights from an eclectic array of acts.

Truck — with its mix of different stages including a Wild West-style saloon bar, a barn and a now new and improved larger main stage — has a lot to live up to, with one of my best ever festival experiences being one of Foals’ early performances bursting the tent to breaking point, meaning a reschedule to the barn.

This is the essence of Truck; offering a platform for up-and-coming bands to play in front of small audiences before their popularity soars.

Treetop Flyers delighted on a sunny Friday evening with their blend of bluesy inspired Americana, before Spiritualized headlined with their distinctive brand of space-rock, with gritty lyrics and elevated screeching guitars making an extremely captivating performance.

On day two we managed to pack in a lot of acts, with highlights including Toy, an indie-psychedelic rock band pleasing a packed Market Stage, with thumping basslines and soaring guitar riffs and with hair that harks back to the Golden Age of Rock.

Oxford legend Gaz Coombes drew a large crowd on Saturday evening. He also threw in Supergrass classic, Moving which delighted the sun-drenched crowd.

After a little dance, and a little more cider, we welcomed in the night and the headline act, The Horrors. Their set included a good mix of songs from across their careers. They dropped in a few tasters of their forthcoming album with electro-dance tune First Day Of Spring coming mid-set and going down well. The psychedelic Elixir Spring followed then Sea Within A Sea, with the set building to a guitar-laden climax with Still Life – inspiring a crowd-surfers to launch themselves into my head.

All in all, it was a delightful little festival in the heart of the county, which impressed with an exciting line-up for a small ticket price. Truck offered revellers the chance to seek out and discover new exciting acts... and also tick off some of our favourites.