Kendal Calling Festival 2026 – Lowther Deer Park, 30th July–2nd August
Words and Photos – John Hayhurst
There is always a point during the journey into Kendal Calling when every packing decision begins to look like a serious mistake. Tents, chairs, sleeping bags, crates of beer and one wildly unsuitable cool box must be dragged across uneven fields and up hills that seemingly grow steeper with every journey. Yet once the tent is standing in The Shire and that first cold beer cracks open, the struggle becomes part of the adventure. The wristband is on, the bags are down and Kendal Calling can begin.
Thursday may be the festival’s shortened opening day, but it wastes little time finding its rhythm. Vacant Weekend and The Covasettes bring bright, summery indie to the Main Stage before Vanessa Carlton creates the first wonderfully unexpected moment of the weekend. Seated at her piano, she turns the vast field into something unexpectedly intimate, with “Ordinary Day” and “White Houses” paving the way for an enormous communal rendition of “A Thousand Miles”.
The Cribs supply the first proper guitar assault, with brothers Gary, Ryan and Ross Jarman ripping through “Hey Scenesters!”, “I’m a Realist” and “Men’s Needs” with characteristic ragged energy. After Lloyd Cole offers a more intimate detour inside Tim Peaks Diner, The Kooks bring Thursday to a euphoric conclusion. As the opening guitar of “Naïve” rings across Lowther Deer Park, thousands of tired travellers suddenly discover another reserve of energy. Kendal Calling’s warm-up night has become a full-scale festival.
Friday morning arrives with tent zips opening, camping stoves spluttering and tired heads attempting to reconstruct the previous evening. Rianne Downey provides a beautifully measured beginning before Black Honey sharpen the mood, while Dublin four-piece Brooki reward the walk to Calling Out with atmospheric guitars and Sarah Brookfield’s raw, soaring vocals.
Lottery Winners fool absolutely nobody when they appear at Parklands disguised as mysterious newcomers The Kokos, but the joke only adds to the celebration. The Vaccines and Hard-Fi then unleash a run of immediate indie anthems, with “If You Wanna”, “Hard to Beat” and the perfectly timed “Living for the Weekend” transforming the sunshine-soaked Main Stage field into a mass of raised drinks and bouncing bodies.
Friday’s defining performance, however, belongs to Scissor Sisters. Jake Shears explodes across the stage in a riot of colour, camp and theatrical excess, leading “Take Your Mama”, “Filthy/Gorgeous” and “I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’” with irresistible showmanship. Two Door Cinema Club later deliver the polished headline set expected of them, with “What You Know” producing a huge communal release, but following Scissor Sisters was an unenviable task. The flamboyant disco spectacle felt like the true headline event.
Away from the Main Stage, Ash pack Parklands with three decades of alternative-rock brilliance, including “Shining Light” and “Girl From Mars”, while Dea Matrona bring swagger to Woodlands. The Moonlandingz then drag the night into far stranger territory with thumping electronics, psychedelic sleaze and incomprehensible shouting. It is during these journeys between stages that Kendal’s visual imagination becomes apparent. Calling Out and Parklands may technically be tents, but their intricate façades and elaborate interiors make them feel like purpose-built fantasy worlds rather than temporary festival structures.
Saturday brings aching legs but little opportunity for recovery. Swim School wake the Main Stage with shimmering alternative rock before Freddie Halkon confidently makes the leap onto Kendal’s biggest platform. Calling Out becomes a conveyor belt of rising guitar music: Fletchr Fletchr bring widescreen indie, Pastel envelop the tent in swirling shoegaze, Brògeal turn it into an unruly Scottish pub session and Arkayla underline why their melodic Manchester swagger is attracting serious attention.
Bleech 9:3 provide one of the weekend’s most emotionally charged discoveries, while Gabrielle proves that timeless songwriting requires no elaborate spectacle. “Out of Reach”, “Rise” and “Dreams” drift across the afternoon with warmth and familiarity. Jamie Webster later transforms the Main Stage into a massed community choir, with “Weekend in Paradise”, “This Place” and “We Get By” becoming songs not simply performed to the audience but owned by it.
As daylight begins to fade, The Libertines arrive in all their beautifully ragged glory. Pete Doherty and Carl Barât share vocals and microphones through “Can’t Stand Me Now”, “Time for Heroes” and “Don’t Look Back into the Sun”, their frayed chemistry offering the perfect prelude to something considerably larger. Biffy Clyro then take control with colossal riffs, fireworks and a flamethrower-wielding Simon Neil during “Who’s Got a Match?”. “Machines” provides a moment of stillness before “Bubbles” and “Many of Horror” close Saturday with voices and lights stretching far into the Cumbrian darkness.
Kendal Calling changes again after dark. Lost Eden turns the woodland into an illuminated nocturnal playground where glowing installations emerge between the trees, strange performers appear from the shadows and electronic music pulls people deeper into the forest. It feels less like another festival area and more like stepping through a portal into an eccentric dream that only exists after midnight.
Sunday begins with the weekend’s least glamorous headline performance: dismantling the tent. Everything is wrestled into undersized bags and carried back to the car, ready for a quick departure after Wolf Alice. The obvious disadvantage is that whoever is driving must approach the bar with considerably more responsibility than the occasion naturally encourages.
There is only one proper way to begin Kendal’s final day: The Lancashire Hotpots leading a fancy-dress crowd through northern comedy classics and the sacred ritual of “Chippy Tea”. BEX provides a bass-heavy punk jolt at Woodlands before Florence Road confirm their status as one of Ireland’s most exciting emerging bands.
The weekend’s most affecting moment arrives back among the trees. Girl In The Year Above had already been a standout discovery at Tramlines, but their Kendal performance feels even more intense. Their haunting interpretation of Massive Attack’s “Teardrop” brings a cinematic stillness to Woodlands and actual tears to my eyes. In a weekend filled with enormous productions, it is this intimate performance that leaves the deepest mark.
Primal Scream take the evening through rock ’n’ roll, psychedelia and dance before Wolf Alice close the festival. Seeing them for the third time in as many weeks has done nothing to diminish their impact. Ellie Rowsell, Joff Oddie, Theo Ellis and Joel Amey move effortlessly between the tenderness of “Bros”, the bite of “Yuk Foo” and the towering noise of “Giant Peach”. “Don’t Delete the Kisses” becomes a final field-wide declaration, carrying additional weight as four days of music, mud, discovery and shared experience reach their conclusion.
Kendal Calling’s biggest stages supplied unforgettable communal moments, but the festival’s heart was also found in the spaces between them: The Kokos fooling nobody, Scissor Sisters covering the Main Stage in disco glitter, Girl In The Year Above stopping Woodlands in its tracks and thousands passionately celebrating a chippy tea.
That combination of enormous spectacle, emerging talent, eccentric traditions and beautifully imagined spaces is what makes Kendal Calling so special. The hills hurt, the tent never fits back into its bag and by Sunday night every voice has been reduced to a rasp. Then a favourite song begins, a new band takes you by surprise or an entire field sings together—and every difficult part becomes worthwhile.
Kendal Calling has done it again. We leave Lowther Deer Park exhausted, battered and already looking forward to next year.