Headstock Festival

Headstock is a new music festival set in Newstead, 10 miles north of Nottingham. The festival was conceived with the help of a grant from the Big Lottery Fund, in partnership with the BBC program Village SOS.

Newstead Village was founded in 1874 with the opening of Newstead Colliery. Like many communities that were built on mining the village fell on hard times in the 80s when in 1987 the mine was closed.

The village was granted £433,140 to transform the former pit into a country park and to put on a music festival, organised by community members who for the past 10 years put on Tree Fest, a small, free, local festival.

Headstock is an easily accessable festival. A short 20 minute train journey from Nottingham finds me in Newstead, the platform end is practically at the entrance to the park, from where a 10 min walk takes me to the Headstock festival entrance.

For me my headstock experience almost ended before it started. After a summer of festivals my tent had had as much as it could take and my tent pole snapped. My attempts to fix with gaffer tape failed miserably. Luckily festival staff on the campsite came to my rescue spending time making a temporary splint for the break so at least I'd be able to get my tent up. No sooner had this been fixed than the same point at the other end of the pole snapped in the same manner, which the staff gladly fixed for me. If it hadn't have been for this fantastic bunch I'd have been on the next train home.

The fixing of the tent was accompanied by the sound of the Newstead Brass band who opened over on the main stage, which could be seen from the campsite. I found myself dancing along to their interpretations of modern well known songs. A shock to myself as brass bands usually want to make me cover my ears in horror!

I took a stroll around the festival site in the baking hot afternoon sun to see what this new festival had to offer and found some amazing food stalls. Pure Indulgence were selling cupcakes that looked almost too good to eat and Homemade had various paellas bubbling away, and possibly the worlds best chocolate brownies. Also on site were the local WI selling cakes like your Mum bakes and lucky dips. I also picked up some lovely jewelery from a stall for the local dogs home.

The cocktail bar was doing a roaring trade in the sunshine, and at only £4 for a cooling pint glass full it's no surprise. The Long Island Iced Tea I found particularly delicious.

Of course a festival isn't just about what food and drink is on offer but the music. And Headstock does not disappoint. With 2 dance tents, a BBC Introducing tent, crammed with the best in local talent (and some from a little further afield) the Musika world tent and a Main stage. The Musika tent I found to be exceptionally good. Everytime I popped in I came across bands that I wanted to dance along to and stay and watch.

The main stage played host to local talent as well as internationally know artists. A particular highlight being Scottish band Frightened Rabbit, who were playing their second to last festival of the summer. They played a well balanced set of new songs, variations of older songs and even a rarely played track (Square 9) from debut album Sing The Greys. The mainstage closed with Northern Irish band Ash. If I had my way Ash would be the headline band for every festival. Their music so suited to blasting out to a field full of people on a summer's night. Stars twinkling above. At an hour and a half their set was worth the ticket price alone.

And when the mainstage finished at half 11 the partying continued over in the other tents until the early hours. I found myself enjoying the sounds of Edward II, who last year reformed after a 10 year absence. This is a band that seamlessly manage to fuse reggae and folk music, and above all made it sound good!

The plan is for Headstock to become a yearly event, eventually growing to a 3 day festival. I personally can't wait to go back next year and am looking forward to watching it grow year on year.

Tickets for Headstock festival were priced at £20 early bird and £30 standard. Under 12's went for free and under 18s £12.50.