GALTRES PARKLANDS 2014 – THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY STAGING OF THE YORK-BASED MUSIC, ARTS, FOOD AND DRINK FESTIVAL – MAY BE OVER FOR ANOTHER YEAR, BUT THERE WAS PLENTY POURED INTO THE MEMORY BANKS TO KEEP PUNTERS GOING UNTIL NEXT TIME.

An eclectic bill (main stage headliners across the three consecutive nights were The Levellers, Tricky and The Human League) offered the festival’s usual wide range of music for its usual friendly crowd. On the Sunday evening Phil Oakey and his electro-soul chums continued Galtres’ tradition of closing festivities with a retro act performing old favourites (OPEN YOUR HEART and [KEEP FEELING] FASCINATION being this year’s pick of the bunch) but it was Tricky’s intense red-and-blue-lit-only performance on the Saturday (his single UK show this year) which was the talk of the site. Inviting several members of the audience onto the stage, a free-for-all lent an air of danger his set had, surprisingly, been lacking up ’til then.
As ever with Galtres it was in the ‘peripheral’ tents, on the smaller stages, where the most interesting moments were to be found. In the beer tent, where upwards of a hundred locally brewed ales were offered – and gratefully accepted – during the course of the weekend, local acts such as Beggar’s Bridge and the effervescent Grand Old Uke Of York played to rapturous crowds. Elsewhere, Teeside’s excellent The Broken Broadcast (transmitting on a frequency somewhere between Arcade Fire and Elbow), the ‘drunken folk singer’ Beans On Toast (akin to Scroobius Pip with an acoustic guitar; railing to late-night revellers in one of the weekend’s warmest, funniest, sets) and Martin Stephenson (tipping his hat to Lou Reed with a few bars of WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, and watched by CORONATION STREET’s Julie Hesmondhalgh) lit up The Black Howl stage.
In the first of two editions of The Mouthcast recorded at Galtres, old pal Stephenson discusses meeting Bill Wyman at Glastonbury; “rock and roll’s greatest failure” John Otway talks about his legendary appearance with Wild Willy Barrett on BBC television’s OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST; and Salford-born poet JB Barrington explains his views on the deliberate divide between rich and poor – all the more riveting after a set delivered in the grounds of Helmsley’s nearby stately home, Duncombe Park…

{  John Otway and JB Barrington portraits by PV  /  The Mouth Magazine  }