The fes­ti­val gods were kind to Beard­ed The­o­ry this year, maybe a bit too kind. The sun beamed down, and secu­ri­ty mor­phed into bar­men, dol­ing out pints of water. All week­end long. Troopers.

The BT team saw sense and opened the main stage on Thurs­day so we weren’t left wan­der­ing around like lost sheep – the site seemed notably full by Thurs­day this year. Man­ches­ter band LIINES (who I inter­viewed in 2022 here) have joined a ros­ter of bands who return on a year­ly basis. It’s all a bit Hotel Cal­i­for­nia. They played the Wood­land Stage and after their set they appeared to be in the sweaty (well, it was boil­ing hot) embrace of diehard fans for most of the evening.

A Cer­tain Radio were sound­ing fan­tas­tic – maybe a lit­tle lost on the main stage, they could have done with a more inti­mate set­ting. Home­town boys The Leisure Soci­ety played too, a beau­ti­ful ear­ly evening set on the Wood­land stage, the per­fect venue for their warm, har­mo­nious songs. The Wood­land stage was also ide­al for The Unthanks.

Beard­ed The­o­ry festival