An ear­ly high­light of the day was the set by BDRMM. They announced they were from ‘Sun­ny Hull’. Not Soli­hull as my friend mis­heard. Shoegazey and dreamy yet retain­ing an ener­gy and mus­cu­lar­i­ty, their set drew you into a hyp­not­ic state. Watch­ing BDR­M­M’s cre­ative process unfold, and on the bril­liant­ly acces­si­ble Mead­ow stage too, was a plea­sure. The applause just would­n’t die down and devot­ed fans at the bar­ri­er stayed on to – unsuc­cess­ful­ly – encour­age the band into doing an encore.

The sun came out and bathed the site in a gold­en glow. Beans on Toast took over the Wood­land stage on Sat­ur­day after­noon with his per­son­al­ly curat­ed line­up. Rap poet, come­di­an and musi­cian Saman­tics kept up a fran­tic pace with his var­ied and amus­ing set and lat­er, Beans him­self played a sec­ond set.

Beard­ed’s jew­el in the crown for Sat­ur­day head­lin­er was Jane’s Addic­tion. The band had flown in from the US for this grand revival gig and there were huge expec­ta­tions rid­ing on their per­for­mance. I met sev­er­al atten­dees who were at Beard­ed The­o­ry pure­ly for this expe­ri­ence. Hard to believe Jane’s Addic­tion haven’t per­formed since 2010, apart from a small warm-up at Bush Hall – how­ev­er Per­ry Far­rell and Dave Navar­ro gave their long-await­ed fans a per­for­mance loaded with pow­er and ener­gy. And they looked as if they were enjoy­ing every moment.

After a lengthy sound­check, BC Camp­light appeared on the Wood­land stage – a late-night slot that felt inti­mate and suit­ed his anguished and per­son­al com­po­si­tions. Sur­pris­ing­ly he has­n’t per­formed live this year but he reward­ed his audi­ence with an atmos­pher­ic hit-heavy set. 

Check out more Beard­ed The­o­ry pho­to gal­leries
Thurs­day pho­tos
Fri­day pho­tos
Sun­day photos

Beard­ed The­o­ry Fes­ti­val 2024