Over the late May bank holiday weekend, there were a lot of festivals happening! I myself couldn’t attend any weekend ones, as I landed back from my 7 week trip to SE Asia on Sunday 26th May in the morning. However, lucky for me I have some great guest writers who really wanted to go in my place! Under The Hill has been on my radar for a couple of years, I’ve heard nothing but awesome things about this small yet perfectly formed boutique fest. So I was so glad when the lovely Emma & Jason volunteered to review UTH for me! And after reading this I will be making sure I pay them a visit in 2020!
Here’s what Emma and Jason had to say about Under The Hill Festival 2019:
Once again I must say a big thank you to Jessi for allowing us to represent Where’s My Tent? on her behalf at Under the Hill Festival 2019. When she asked if we wanted to attend a small, boutique, eclectic festival showcasing the best in electroswing, gypsy, Balkan and drum & bass, how could we refuse? We also took along Jason’s 20 year old son Jamie (a complete festival newbie) for the ride.
Under the Hill Festival, held in Ashton Under Hill near Evesham in Worcestershire, started in 2017 so is still very new, which makes how organised and professional it was all the more impressive! It is the creation of Mista Trick who is the artistic director as well as one of the main acts in the line up. I did get to briefly chat to him as we were leaving and got a photo with my Where’s My Tent? t-shirt on!
I had been counting down the days until our first festival of the summer and had read some great reviews of Under the Hill so was pretty excited as we set off on Friday 24thMay. Even the pre-bank holiday weekend traffic on the M25 couldn’t dampen my spirits (probably helped that I wasn’t the one driving – sorry Jason!). We arrived mid afternoon and relaxed in the car park with a cider until the gates opened. There was a bit of a delay getting in but security were friendly and Mista Trick himself came out to chat to people in the queue and assured us we’d be able to get in soon!
Wristbands on and excitement levels increasing every second, we were immediately greeted by a trio of fabulously dressed lovelies who handed us a welcome drink (a pretty strong vodka and orange juice!). We thought this was a lovely touch! Being a small festival, there was no separation between the campsite and the arena which I much prefer – I tend to only go to festivals where this is the case as it makes the experience much more immersive and creates a lovely sense of community. With plenty of space to camp we put up our tent and chatted to our new neighbours – Jess, Ben and Joe – and offered our other neighbours a pump for their inflatable bed, which they returned with a packet of biscuits to say thank you. It’s little things like this that really make festivals the special places that I never want to leave!
Let’s get this out the way nice and early, and talk about toilets! – these can really make or break an event but I’m pleased to announce that Under the Hill had the best toilets I’ve ever seen at a festival! Flushing, always clean and (nearly) always with loo roll! Plus a mirror to fix your hair/make up/glitter/face paint which is really useful, especially as most festivals don’t allow glass to be brought into the campsite. I did see showers but I’m unsure if these were just for the people who opted for the glamping option – either way, we were only there for two nights and it was nothing that a couple of baby wipes couldn’t fix! (Note – I know these are bad for the environment and I promise to switch over to a flannel and water going forward – promise!).
Tent up, eco glitter on and feeling rather thirsty, we headed over to the smaller of the two bars, which was situated in the wooded area which would later be transformed into a forest rave. Being a small, independent festival with no corporate sponsors, Under the Hill don’t allow alcohol to be brought onto site, promising pub pricing on their drinks. They kept this promise – I actually took a photo of the drinks menu because I couldn’t believe how reasonably priced everything was – £3.70 for a pint of Thatchers Gold – outstanding! It’s so refreshing to go to a festival where you can buy a drink for the same price (well, less – we come from just outside London!) as pub prices. From the very first Under the Hill in 2017, the festival has provided reusable plastic cups for drinks, which you pay £1 for and can either return at the end of the festival for the deposit back or take home as a keepsake. There has been a lot in the newspapers recently about initiatives that festivals and other large public events are doing to combat the amount of waste and single use plastic, so it was great to see that even a small event like this was taking environmental issues seriously. As well as reusable cups, they did not sell plastic straws, there were plenty of recycling bins, and best of all, they had a huge array of solar panels which they used to power all of the traders and stalls on site!
We had a little wonder around the site and discovered a climbing wall, which Jamie couldn’t wait to have a go on. The guys running it were very friendly and encouraging – not enough for me to be brave enough to try it, although now I wish I had! I opted for browsing the stalls and taking photos on top of the huge hay stack instead. One of the stalls, Jackfruit, sold lots of really cool festival clothing and things like hats, bags and purses. They loved my WMT t-shirt and even took a picture of it! I bought a cute little purse and Jamie bought some baggy festival trousers to look the part – I must say his transformation from festival novice to looking completely at home in a field was brilliant to see!
To the right of the main stage were some brilliant artists, including Sophie Woolfenden, who were busy creating some amazing illustrations. Sophie and her husband were camped right by us, and when chatting back at the tents they told us that they had Mr Tea & the Minions as their wedding band – how cool is that?
Next up – food! I think were about six food stalls and a couple of tea/coffee places, but it was a case of quality over quantity as the food we had was delicious. First up we tried Vegan Junkies; an extremely enthusiastic lady came to our tent offering us a taste of their nachos as we were setting up and we promised we’d be back for a burrito. I can’t remember what exactly was in it but it was amazing! I especially liked the mini Space Invaders game they had on their counter to play whilst waiting for our food – love a bit of retro gaming! We also had some amazing jackfruit and onion bhaji wraps from the cheerful chaps at Nomad Kitchen.
Time to talk about music! I must admit, when I looked at the line up for Under the Hill I didn’t recognise any of the acts but I actually find that quite exciting – lots of new music to discover! I did have a listen in advance and decided that Mr Tea & the Minions were going to be amazing, and Jason loved Binbag Wisdom so we were really looking forward to catching their sets on the Saturday.
But first up on the Friday, we headed to the Forest Stage in the woods to see Jeremy Johnson, Emily Magpie, and Stone Bear – all three giving us beautifully chilled acoustic sets in the woods and a great way to start the festival with a nice cold pint of cider. These were followed by DJs Captain Flatcap and Timbali warming us up for the Saturday with some banging drum & bass to get our rave on.
Saturday morning was very relaxed, a bit of breakfast and a coffee to wake us up, and it was time to glitter up again for a full day of music ahead. Brass Funkeys opened up the Main Stage, but only after parading through the camping area and drawing a crowd of followers keen to hear their funky, modern take on big band music. Following them were Town of Cats, who brought a brilliant energy to the stage and got us all up dancing and cartwheeling (it seemed completely normal at the time – believe me!). I spotted Mr Tea & the Minions on the grass in front of us enjoying the music so made sure I said hi and got a photo with (most of) them! A bit of chatting (fangirling) later and I was pleased to hear they have a new album out in the autumn which I can’t wait to listen to! They were brilliant when they performed later in the day and I hope to see them again at another festival soon.
Jason’s favourites, Binbag Wisdom, were also outstanding (who would have thought that rapping and a clarinet would make such a good combination?) and he got a photo with the main man himself. We really enjoyed when Mista Trick donned the stage with the Pocket Belles – if people weren’t already up and dancing, they were now! I’m quite new to the electroswing genre of music but it’s definitely up there with my favourites now.
By this time the cider had set in and I thought I’d be brave and put on my brand new Burnt Soul catsuit! I’d bought Jason the matching ‘meggings’ and we felt completely comfortable giving them their festival debut here. Thank you to Jessi for the recommendation, these catsuits are so comfortable, flattering and ours looked amazing under the UV lights! We got lots of compliments and can’t wait to wear them at every festival we go to this year.
Unfortunately by around 5:30pm the cider got the better of us and we had to go and have an afternoon nap, but we made it back up again to catch the end of Pás de Problème, another very high energy act from Portugal with hula hooping unicorn dancers! The headline act of Slamboree Soundsystem totally blew us away, especially the amazing vocals by Kathika Rabbit. Definitely check them out if you can!
Once the main stage had finished for the evening, we all headed to the Forest Stage for the rave in the woods – DJs including Jimi Needles, Fizzy Gillespie and Dr Meaker bringing us the best of drum & bass to skank to. We managed to chat to Mike Freear from Slamboree which was pretty cool too; I do love these small festivals where the acts party with the crowds before or after their sets, it’s great to meet them and tell them how much you enjoyed their music in person.
It was sad to pack all our things away on the Sunday morning, feeling like we were just getting used to our new home! Hopefully Under the Hill will be back bigger and better next year, although not too big – we really enjoyed how intimate it was, and felt like we knew everyone there by the end. Most of the festival goers were from nearby Bristol and made us promise to come and visit them there for a night out (we’ve never been!). It was great to see such a clean campsite once everyone had packed up, thanks to everyone keeping their camps tidy and the brilliant volunteers who came round with binbags to keep the site free of any rubbish. Jason’s asked me to give a special shout out to Callum and Aaron who worked hard litter picking and cleaning the toilets – the unsung heroes of the festival!
I managed to get a quick photo and a chat with Richard aka Mista Trick as we were packing up our things. He spotted my WMT t-shirt and made me promise to send the link to the review! Which makes me even more pleased to say that there were no negatives to this festival at all. Compared to the age of the other festival goers Jason and I were on the older side but everyone mixed together and it didn’t matter whether we were 18 or 80. They were all lovely people and quite possibly the friendliest crowd of any festival we’ve been to. We’d definitely return to this unique little festival and so would everyone we spoke to. Jessi – get on down there next year!
