Launched in 1998 and after having a 9 year break, The Willow Festival has made a comeback! Peterborough was treated to a huge amount of live music 21st – 23rd July 2023. I was there Saturday & Sunday and my aim was to photograph as many bands as possible, and the 4000 photos snapped and 32,000 steps walked would suggest I succeeded!

Previously a free event, this years festival was £10 which is a fair price for being able to come and go over the weekend. For the price of your ticket as well as bands there was a funfair, kids activities, a music hub, the Rock Bus, plenty of food options, a Kopperberg bar, and even good parking options. There was a steady crowd all weekend, moving between stages. The pair in the picture above were keeping the atmosphere alive right up until 11pm on Sunday, good job lads!

The festival was held on the embankment behind the Key Theatre, under the watchful gaze of the cathedral. With a choice of 7 stages (all named after local pubs that are supporters of the music scene) you could see any amount of live music you wanted. The sound and lighting was great, a professional job on every stage, thanks to CWS Sound & Lighting who ran most stages. They did a decent job over the weekend to ensure everyone was heard and seen but they also ensured everything ran on time. The bands were unpaid for their time and talents, turning the festival into a showcase event for many bands, a large number of them local to Peterborough. Selling merch and CDs has now become standard for many musicians trying to earn money these days so I was a bit surprised there wasn’t a dedicated merch stand for the bands.

You can read The Willow Festivals mission statement here if you are interested in what they are all about, all good things but in my opinion bands need to be paid.

The weather was terrible on Saturday and I think it kept some people away, which is a real shame for the bands as ticket sales indicated the crowd would be 20,000 strong. It seemed very quiet on Sunday as well, it could have been due to the festival area being so vast you didn’t notice crowds, it certainly wasn’t lack of choice of music that kept people away! I really enjoyed seeing some ‘new to me’ bands although it was quite rock heavy. There is a lot of talent out there and if we want to keep going to gigs we need to support bands.

There were so many bands I liked, and I really love photographing bands that are fun & animated, rock bands especially with their rockstar posing and guitarists playing to the audience. Highlight of my weekend was Mr Griff, a funky soul band from Cambridge, I snapped up their new cd The Architect straight after their set.

“Moody, cool as hell, jazz funk driven beauty”…BBC Introducing.

Other bands I loved were Titan, an 80’s heavy metal covers band with an amazing vocalist. Dogs! Teeth! were excellent, really quirky & fun with good lyrics. There were so many well known local acts, P Town Funk did a couple of sets over the weekend, The Glorious One Eyed Cats did a set on Sunday afternoon in the sunshine getting everyone dancing to their brand of rock n roll. New band the Very Beautiful South had a setlist of hits , Groove Cartell were there in the evening and drew a crowd of steadfast fans, with a fat 4 piece brass section, tight and punchy rhythm section, and the always-up-for-a-boogie Martin on vocals, you’ll be dancing along in no time. On Saturday I saw Rebelation (one of the best reggae ska bands on the scene), The Dan the D, rock band Blunden, Janus Stark, The Famous Unknowns (classic rock covers, another one of my highlights). Headlining Saturday was Austin Gold, in the pouring rain on The Crown stage, and The Tourettes were on the Ploughman stage, both bands drew a great crowd, showing local bands are really well supported in our lovely city. Another band to watch out for, with their awesome vocals, is Cush who played on Sunday, a newly put together rock band playing original songs.

The Great Leslie were cool, a 4 piece band based in London, one to watch if you like modern guitar driven sounds, the band have been on an upward trajectory since their very first release in 2020, launching their career when their first ever single was selected as BBC Introducing’s Track of the Week and had one of their singles featured on the Made in Chelsea sound track.

If you ask me, the festival was a success and it certainly blew the cobwebs off after the 9 year hiatus. The organisers did a sterling job of pulling it altogether and I hope the festival will be back next year where it can grow and evolve after this strong start. For next year I hope a few tweaks would make it even better; in my opinion it would be helpful to have a map on site, bigger signage on the tent stages (I found them hard to find) and a place where the line-up is posted on a site noticeboard rather than programmes only. I know you can bring a chair but some additional covered seating areas would be good as well, I lost track of how many laps of the embankement I did but there was a lot of walking. A covered and dedicated merch stand for bands would help bands promote themselves and let people show their support with a bit of cash. For those Jazz/Northern Soul/Funk/RnB bands reading this out there, sign up for next year as I’d like to see more of that genre represented.

The Willow Festival has a good website with lots of info about each band and social media links, they did well updating all day on facebook and Instagram. So if you missed out you can head over there to find some new music inspiration.

As someone who works the “gig economy” it is tough to find a regular income and whilst showcase events to promote bands to bigger audiences are important I think it would be better if bands were supported for their craft with money, guitar strings aint cheap! What do you think, would you pay a higher ticket price to help support gigging musicians or is there another way? I genuinely hope the organisers do bring it back next year, it’s a huge thing to pull off!

I’ll be sharing photo galleries on my socials but here’s a small selection below. Please go and check out some of these bands and keep supporting live music any way you can!