Truth be told, whilst we enjoyed it somewhat, we came away from Download Festival this year wondering if our festival days were over. However, this year’s iteration of Y Not Festival thankfully changed our minds, with it being one of the very best music events we’ve ever attended!
Let’s take a look!
Review by Jane Howkins & Amy Horne
This year, the Y Not team decided to open the festival early for an extra fee on the Thursday, with less bands playing than the remaining days. One of the things we love about this festival is the fact that they have so many different acts playing, with a lot of smaller, unknown bands and artists present, such as Casino. They’re a funky rock and roll band with an old school northern soul and Motown side, and they didn’t disappoint, getting the crowd involved straight away!
Next up were Scouting For Girls – we’ve never been a big fan of the band, but they seemed on top form, playing many bangers throughout their set. They might be a little style over substance, but when the songs are this catchy, who cares? The band we most wanted to see that weekend was Kaiser Chiefs, who played a blinding set from across their back catalogue. The sound quality was top notch throughout, with bangers such as I Predict A Riot making everyone sing along at once. Frontman Ricky Wilson had complete control of the stage during their set, rounding the day out nicely.
Admittedly, we’d never heard of Michael Aldag before, but the singer-songwriter blew our minds with his captivating voice. He has a soulful vocal range, playing a range of covers and original songs to appease the crowd. Well worth a watch if you ever get the chance to see him perform again! The next band we wanted to see was Soft Play – we caught them at Download this year, and they put on a blinding set. Y Not was no different, seeing the band deploy their old school punk sound to great applause. Another must see if you ever get the chance!
Beans On Toast is a Y Not Festival mainstay, having played pretty much every year the festival has been running. The second stage was absolutely packed to see him, and it was great to see so many people singing along. My only slight issue was that Beans’ songs tend to sound a bit samey after a while, but in a festival atmosphere, it doesn’t really matter so much. The Kooks were next up on the main stage – they’re known for pioneering the landfill indie scene, and despite dropping off the charts in recent years, plenty of people wanted to see them. The energy was electric – particularly when hit Naive was played at the end.
Finally, it was time to head back to the second stage for our headliner of the evening – Jake Bugg. Bugg’s career exploded around a decade ago, but he’s recently come to the forefront of the music scene again with the relatively new track, All I Need. It’s a little more poppy than you might expect, but the crowd reaction was very impressive, with everyone singing along. Other impressive numbers included the triumphant Two Fingers and Seen It All, one of our favourite Jake Bugg songs.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to watch the remaining acts of the weekend due to illness, so our time was cut short. However, Y Not 2024 proved to be another magical weekend (despite not being well for half of it), and well worth a visit once again!