Sun­day is unabashed­ly fun day at Beard­ed The­o­ry. Pro­ceed­ings kick off with Mr Moti­va­tor and a mass exer­cise ses­sion at the Wood­land stage at the unearth­ly hour of 12 noon, and the place is packed out – Mr Moti­va­tor’s appeal is clear­ly undimmed. There’s so much to cel­e­brate today. First­ly those threat­en­ing rain­clouds are beat­ing a retreat. It’s also Pirate dress-up day, beard com­pe­ti­tion, and a day of great music stretch­es before us. pirates3 Pirate

He’s also car­ry­ing a Lego mug and a Lego phone cov­er, so this appears to be a gen­uine obses­sion. I pre­dict a winner.

The com­pe­ti­tion kicks off at 2pm, with Mr Moti­va­tor tak­ing charge of the pro­ceed­ings. Beard competition And Bruce does indeed win! Mr Motivator Mag­i­cal Sounds on Sun­day is a glob­al feast, with dance sounds from the Scot­tish High­lands down to the Indi­an sub­con­ti­nent. Grouse­beat­er Soundsys­tem with their atmos­pher­ic pipes, have a touch of the Mon­ster Ceilidh Band’s Celtic/dance fusion going on. This set is fol­lowed by the fan­tas­tic Dr Trip­py who pre­sides over a com­pul­sive­ly dancey set, play­ing what he terms ‘Pun­jabi swamp’ – a pri­mar­i­ly Indi­an dub mix. Head­ing back to the main stage I get a wel­come text from a friend: THE PUPPETS ARE IN THE DANCE TENT! At last… so it’s back to the Mag­i­cal Sounds for more danc­ing action with Beard­ed The­o­ry’s pup­pets, who have been a bit elu­sive this year. Lat­er, the tent plays host to a won­der­ful set from Trans­glob­al Under­ground collective.

puppets in dance tent

The Beat per­form a stun­ning set, with Rank­ing Roger and his son on vocals, ener­gis­ing the Pal­let stage with a mix of num­bers old and new, such as Hands off She’s Mine and Doors of Your Heart Ranking Roger The beat

Sun­day’s head­lin­er is James. There’s no time for a slow build, it’s straight into it with the first num­ber Sit Down (tak­en off the set list for a cou­ple of years, so Tim Booth tells us), and he wastes no time in rush­ing to the front of the stage, almost dis­ap­pear­ing into the clear­ly ador­ing crowd. How is he going to fol­low this? I ask myself. But the hits.. and the pow­er of the new album over­come any mis­giv­ings. The sec­ond song is Curse, Curse from the lat­est album in 2014 La Petite Mort. As Tim Booth says, “this is no nos­tal­gia tour”. Tim Booth Tracks from the new album reveal a band in full sec­ond flow­er­ing. Num­bers range from more recent work to back in time. And as we reach the final num­bers, a giant fire­work dis­play kicks off. We’re singing “Some­times when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can see your soul…’, the fire­works are burst­ing into the sky, and sud­den­ly I real­ize we’ve almost reached the end of the fes­ti­val. Yep, a lump in the throat.. oh pull your­self together.

Tim Booth from James

There’s always a mag­ic ingre­di­ent that defines the best fes­ti­vals, and Beard­ed The­o­ry has what­ev­er it is. This year felt like a spe­cial one with the new site now feel­ing like home. It’s a mix of the music – a mix of old-school bands, new acts and a psy­che­del­i­cal­ly groovy dance tent – plus the fan­cy dress and beards, and the great fam­i­ly enter­tain­ment, but what seems to define it more than any­thing is the most fun, kind and friend­ly peo­ple I’ve ever encoun­tered at any fes­ti­val. Here’s to Beard­ed The­o­ry for 2015… and onwards till the next one. There were loads and loads more bands… too many to men­tion here, so I’ll be adding more pho­tos of Beard­ed The­o­ry to the site soon… If you enjoyed read­ing my review please ‘like’ it, leave a com­ment or fol­low on Face­book, thanks! 

For more pho­tos of Beard­ed The­o­ry Fes­ti­val over the years, vis­it www.samdawsonphotography.co.uk

4 thoughts on “Bearded Theory Sunday 2015 – pirates, beards and bands

  1. Pingback: Review: Bearded Theory 2015 | Gourmet gigs
  2. Pingback: Good news just in: James and even more artists for Festival No 6 | Gourmet gigs

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