Long Road Festival 2023

The Long Road Festival 2023
25-27th August
Stanford Hall
Leicestershire

As has been the tradition, The Long Road Festival is unique amongst UK music festivals, in that it covers the whole gamut of what passes for Country – from the Country Rap and Bro-Country side, over to the more esoteric end of the Americana, Alt and Roots spectrum.
It’s the radio-friendly AOR/soft rock (and even rap) end of the spectrum which seems to attract the biggest proportion of the crowd to The Long Road however, judging by the numbers attending the main stage in their “pretend cowboy” (© Angelica Rockne) gear.
This year, the opportunity to play dress-up and indulge in the epicurean pleasures of fast food and expensive alcohol (unless they sneaked their own in, which seemed to be very much a thing)… seemed to be more of a draw than the music itself for many of the crowd, who judging by posts in one of the attendee groups on Facebook, revealed a somewhat startling amount of musical ignorance. I’ve no problem with that though, if it helps to subsidise the diverse booking policy of the festival – and I’m sure the organisers feel the same.

Well, dear reader, it’ll come as no surprise that I didn’t see a single act on the main stage – I had been intending to catch Margo Price, but a combination of scheduling clashes and rain showers kept me away. Everything that I wanted to see was split between 1). The “Buddy’s Good-Time Bar” stage – a smaller area on the periphery of the festival site, surrounded by noise-buffering trees 2). The Front Porch – a mock-up of a wooden shack between the food and drink area and the main drag to the main stage – and 3). The Interstate Stage – a large, open-sided tent at the back of the stately home on whose grounds the festival is established.

Friday is traditionally a shorter day, with the music starting late afternoon and for me, that began with Aoife O’ Donovan on the Interstate stage.
Mixing recent tracks and a Springsteen cover, she did well to cope with a lighting failure in the tent which meant that she ended her set in deep darkness.
Over at the Buddy’s stage, I caught a fair chunk of Robbie Cavanagh’s performance – aided by a band of Northern Cowboys (Dan Wiebe and Thomas Dibb) his soulful songs see him becoming to these ears, a meatier James Taylor.

Meanwhile, back at the Interstate stage, the tech crew had been beavering away to try and get some sort of lighting to illuminate the stage – and rather surreally, the Honky-Tonk of Jim Lauderdale and the Game Changers (including Lillie Mae – wish she’d been given a solo slot while she was at the festival) was accompanied by some bizarre disco lighting.
Far from being a distraction, it added a sense of fun and unpredictability to a storming Classic Country outing from a very tight band.

And that was me done for the Friday – not wanting to indulge in Country-oke (each to their own) until the early hours, I retreated to my dubious hotel in Rugby and re-charged for what was going to be a busy Saturday.

As it turned out, I spent the entire day at Buddy’s stage, where Loose Records were curating a mix of their own artists and other friends and favourites.
Before that happened though there was the well-received (by the early morning UK country crowd) Not my cup of tea If I’m honest and not quite sure why there were Adele and Amy Winehouse covers in his short festival set, but I’m guessing that’s a compromise that many a working musician has to make when playing bread and butter gigs where one’s own solo material isn’t enough to get booked.
The UK Country crowd attended in numbers and loved him. Just not for me, though.
It was quite the contrast therefore, when the excellent Caleb Caudle took to the stage and dissed the presence of Confederate Flags and such bizarre imagery he’d seen around the site.
He eloquently and politely, yet strongly explained why it was a bad thing – I believe Bluegrass festivals in the UK now have strict policies outlawing such imagery – it would be good if The Long Road took a leaf out of their book in future years.
Caudle’s set, a mixture of the recent and forthcoming, was literate and he has an ear for a melody that gives him an edge over the crowded singer-songwriter marketplace.

First pleasant discovery of the Festival was up next – the intriguingly monikered Beaux Gris Gris & the Apocalypse were unknown to me, but their US-UK line-up and a similar melting pot of influences – I heard The Cramps and Dr John and a bunch of funky Country-Soul – won me over – great stage presentation that was well thought out and delivered with zest helped too.
Sometimes bands that go down a storm at festivals don’t always translate onto the recorded medium, but I heard enough variety and musical dynamics -and, frankly – songs – to think that Beaux Gris Gris & the Apocalypse will be a name to watch out for.

Angelica Rockne, who was up next, provided an ethereal blend of West-Coast hippy Psych Folk. Playing solo with just acoustic guitar, the 60’s trippiness of her most recent album wasn’t as obvious, but her tremulous vocals hooked and enthralled a committed and knowledgeable hard-core crowd who responded enthusiastically.
Equally on the jazzier end of the Country spectrum were Native Harrow, playing as a four piece here – they’re a band who are growing into and defining a sound that is straddling genres and certainly pushing the boundaries of what might be regarded, even loosely as “Americana” – they’re clearly exploring different influences to most who are around at the moment -interesting musical times would seem to lie ahead.

It must be really difficult to find your own path and not be compared when your dad was John Prine, but Tommy Prine is doing a good job at finding his own way. Collaborations and friendships with the likes of Ruston Kelly are going to do him no harm at all either.
Young Mr Prine has the genetic gift of being able to rustle up words in clever ways and while he’s in the early days of his career, I heard enough to want to track his progress and to see how he starts to grow and develop in terms of his musical and lyrical delivery.

Loose Records’ The Hanging Stars were up next and I was delighted to hear and see that they are further honing their Nuggets/Chocolate Watch Band sound. They’re a band who seem to have fashioned a clear identity and there are encouraging signs that a wider audience is starting to take note and that their hard touring graft is paying off – all power to them.
Carson McHone, who followed, had travelled from the US by boat (it took a week) before heading on to join up with Daniel Romano’s Outfit in Europe – this gig was a one-off, on that journey.
When I’d seen her earlier in the year, I took a while to get used to the “Still Life” songs being played solo on electric guitar, but here they made perfect sense.
The mix of melancholy and aggression is melding into something quite different and the new songs she aired had immediate impact.
She’s going from strength to strength.

Last October, I saw Jesper Lindell and band play to 11 people (including three bar staff) at a café-bar in Hamburg.
On that occasion they played an hour of material (with instruments borrowed from The Hanging Stars and Danny & the Champions of the World) as if their lives depended on it – seeing them again at Kilkenny Roots in front of a much larger crowd, they played with similar intensity, so it came as no shock to see them deliver another high-quality set of catchy Country-Soul.
It struck me that a Jesper Lindell/Robbie Cavanagh tour would be a musical match made in heaven. Somebody needs to sort that.

My personal Saturday highlight, however, took the stage next.
Since seeing him supporting Charley Crockett last autumn, I’ve been playing the music of Theo Lawrence non-stop. Introduced by Loose Records’ main man Tom Bridgewater as a “Country Crooner”, France’s Monsieur Lawrence has classic Country authenticity running through his veins – Chris Scruggs, no less has given him the seal of approval.
I may have said this before, but he’s like a vocal mix of Marty Robbins and Faron Young – with a touch of Roy Orbison – in the body of the Fonz!
In his all too short set, I wasn’t disappointed, other than by its brevity.
Next time, I need to see him with a band – YouTube just isn’t enough!

Topping and tailing the night were, once more Danny and the Champions of the World – the heavyweights of the UK Americana scene may have had a few line-up shuffles, but their cosmic Springsteen-esque soul is still mighty.
It was a clever touch to get Joe Bennett to sing all the verses of “The Weight” without going into the chorus too…

Saturday over – and what an excellent day it was – Sunday had a lot to live up to, but I needn’t have worried.
Over on the Interstate stage I kicked the day off in a lively manner with Holy Moly and the Crackers – a band from the North East of England who are on the Folkier edge of the rootsy spectrum, and I spotted my first accordion of the weekend.
With the tent slowly filling up due to the early start and late risers, the band’s energy went into the void somewhat at the start, but received increasing approval as the crowd grew.

Down the hill and back to Buddy’s, I caught the first half of Hannah White’s set, which confirmed what I’d previously experienced when I’d seen her – she’s a strong songwriter with an ear for melody and the dynamics of a song – and on this occasion she was ably abetted by Michele Stodart, Holly Carter and Emma Holbrook, along with Hannah’s husband Kieran, all of whom played beautifully and sympathetically to support and develop her songs.

Back at the Interstate, Jill Andrews was a name I was familiar with, but I only had a fleeting musical knowledge of.
Well-scheduled around Sunday lunch, her reflective, melodic songs did nothing to disturb the digestion, but lyrically challenged the listeners into a greater state of emotional awareness.
A quick trip over to the Front Porch saw a similar response to the set of The Brother Brothers -sibling harmonies around Sunday lunch -what’s not to love?

It was following this that things started to heat up in the Interstate – I’ve seen Will Hoge solo at the Basement East in Nashville and in a tiny upstairs room of a pub in Alton in the Staffordshire Moorlands too, but I hadn’t seen him in full band kick-ass mode – and this is what we got on this occasion. Reminiscent to these eyes and ears of The Waco Brothers, Hoge’s brash Joe Strummer-isms on guitar and knee pumping got a growing crowd singing and cheering along.
He’s apparently back next year – get your Bandsintown alerts set right now.
In (presumably) smaller venues, it’s going to be a heck of a show.

And then… a band I’d seen before, but as a sit-down trio – absolutely blew me and half of Warwickshire away. I first saw The War and Treaty play a Americanafest Day Fest show at The Local – a pub in Nashville, around 4 years ago and it was a gentle and reflective trio show featuring husband and Wife Michael and Tanya Trotter and long-time guitarist Max Brown.
That in no way prepared me for this show though – WOW!
Starting at tornado force and then hitting hurricane levels, this was a James Brown revue on steroids, a secular gospel explosion and a big warm hug of musical love that almost lifted the tent off its pegs.
I’ve rarely seen a band able to win over a largely non-partisan crowd so ‘immediately’, but that’s what Mr and Mrs Trotter managed, within the space of less than half a song.
This was something truly special and will be one of those “I was there” moments for most who witnessed them.
Truly magical. Hopefully there’ll be a return visit, in the not-too-distant future – word will surely get around that this is a band that are going places.

Poor Kezia Gill must have been wondering how to follow that, but, aided by the combined forces of the UK Country crowd who’ve followed and supported her, she gave it her all and managed to build upon the exposure she got from duetting with Marty Stuart the previous year on the main stage at this festival.

One of my top gigs from last year was seeing Sierra Ferrell’s debut UK performance in Oxford, so her return was much anticipated.
Unsurprisingly, the tent filled in anticipation and in an all too short 45 minute set, her reputation remained untarnished.
Over the last twelve months, Ms Ferrell has been getting more and more experience of bigger stages and her stage-craft, compared to the aforementioned show that I saw, has come on in leaps and bounds.
As well as favourites like “Bells of every Chapel”, “Jeremiah” and “In Dreams” there was a soon to be released new song called (according to the setlist I saw) “Fox Hunt” – it was introduced with an advisory by Ms Ferrell, qualifying that she doesn’t hunt, but it’s a song about the days when people had to do so to survive.
It was incredibly catchy, and it’s still in my head, the day after hearing for the one and only time so far.

I then just had time to catch the last half of a delightful Emily Scott Robinson performance on the Front Porch before calling it a day and heading back up the M6 to home.

So – once more, it’s a well done to the organisers of The Long Road – while the different Country tribes in attendance don’t necessarily mix – in fact you might say that it’s several festivals in one – the fact that they are there and all enjoying what’s on offer, is a measure of its success and long may it continue.

PS (Kelly Willis, Brennen Leigh and Melissa Carper for Buddy’s next year Baylen, please)

Review and photos by Nick Barber
Photos – https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjASmgX