The 2000trees 2019 Experience
We get the full lowdown from the winners of our 2000trees competition and the thoughts from our bands who played the Xtra Mile Takeover on the Axiom Stage
- 31/07/19 -
2000trees is one of the best festivals around, as evidenced by their willingness to have our artists all over the shop. In 2019, we did another one of our Axiom Stage takeovers on Friday 12 July, headlined by Möngöl Hörde and featuring Skinny Lister, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly., Seán McGowan, Oxygen Thief, Brand New Friend, the return of Jim Lockey & the Solemn Sun, Crazy Arm playing their debut album Born To Ruin, and deux furieuses opening proceedings in blitz-strewn style. Read a collection of tweet highlights from our artists post-set!
If you saw any of our bands and loved them, please consider buying their excellent records.
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly – @forgetcape “Yesterday’s show at @2000trees will live long in my memory. One of the all time great GCWCF shows. Thank you for your energy and volume. Blown away.”
Also, a few days later – @forgetcape “Listening to the multi track recording of @2000trees - holy shit that was a good show.”
Seán McGowan – @seanmcgowanuk “Yes @2000trees don’t wind me up that was top class”
deux furieueses – @deuxfurieuses ”Loved opening the @Xtra_Mile takeover the Axiom stage today at @2000trees 2019! We were back on stage later joining the awesome @oxygenthiefYEAH on backing vocal duties! Enjoying @pabh and looking forward to @gracepetrie and @Mongol_Horde! #2000trees”
Skinny Lister – @SkinnyLister “@2000trees @Xtra_Mile Takeover. Bloody brilliant!!”
Brand New Friend – @brandnewfriendz “You guys turned UP on Friday, thank you so much. @2000trees was a blast, we’d love to come back next summer #2000trees”
Earlier in 2019, we gave you the chance to win two weekend wristbands and travel for both of you to 2000trees festival which took place 9–11 July 2019. The only thing you had to do was to have a great time. And maybe tell us and your fellow festival goers and envious types who couldn’t go (like me, Brad who missed out on all the Axiom Stage Takeover fun because of *sigh* work) what fun you had!
Eszter won the competition, and because she already had tickets, brought along Liz and her partner too. Here’s their recounting of the experience.
Friday
Very lucky to have been gifted some winning tickets from friends who had already bought tickets to the 2000trees. Thank you Dave & Eszter and of course XMR!
Armed with our VIP tickets, we got in and got our wristbands with the pre-loaded cash. Pre-loaded cash wrist band, loved this. Definitely the best way to help make a festival experience hassle free.
Next, we walked around to find where the VIP camping was and get the VIP wristband. As we had walked around the regular camp site we spotted ‘busk stops’, somewhere to get up and perform as and when you fancy. Turns out quite a few of the listed performers were also found on here at times over the weekend.
Phone signal is poor in the area so we couldn’t contact our friends, but they had sent us a photo as they arrived on Wednesday evening ready for a full day Thursday, and we managed to locate them with the picture! We offer you this friendly tip: make arrangements to meet friends at a specific time and location before the festival kicks off. Phone signal is always ropey, especially in the countryside and dependent upon your network.
Once the tent was up the first point of call was the VIP tent for our complimentary glass of Prosecco – thank you! The VIP tent is lush and a great place to chill out. However as we had only just arrived, we grabbed a pint and headed over to the Forest Sessions stage for Gaz Brookfield. What a pro! The guitar mic sound went out on his second song, so he just jumped out into the crowd and sang his song. After sound check on the third song, he was back on stage to complete the set.
Next was lunch; lemon, chicken and halloumi gyros from the Castaway kitchen. There is such a good variety of food to choose from at 2000trees. My only disappointment was I couldn’t get round them all during the time we were here. We indulged in a post-lunch chill and catch up on the straw bales, watching the world go by, and occasionally a few people came and said hello.
ItoldyouIwouldeatyou were on the Neu stage while we browsed some of the shops and merch. I was keen to try out some yoga at The Word with Cheltenham Pilates & Yoga at least once, and it tied in with our group’s plan to split and meet up again in an hour. I love going as a group, but sometimes it nice to venture off on your own and you never know what adventures you might find yourself on. In this case, a lovely yoga class. As I floated out of the tent I noticed the henna tattoo place, Delicate Designs, and requested something off the books. Then it was back to the Box Pub for a beer, catch up and decide what was next.
Two of us headed to the Axiom Stage (the location of the Xtra Mile Recordings Takeover) to watch Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.. What great energy these guys had today! Then we made it to the main stage for the last 5 minutes of The Wildhearts and headed back to the Forest Sessions for Grace Petrie. Sadly, the sound went out in the middle of her last song, but this just highlighted what an amazing voice she has. Stunning!
Dinner was a duck wrap from Fuzzy Duck before listening to Skinny Lister, another Xtra Mile Takeover band on the Axiom Stage.
I headed back to the tent to get changed and chill for half an hour but succumbed to the excitement of the day and fell asleep! Oops. Then drifted in and out of sleep throughout the night listening to the sounds of various gigs. I could just make out a bit of Möngöl Hörde (perfect dream-time music! - Editor) and You Me At Six, followed by the silent disco – think one massive karaoke session. Even though you get broken sleep at a festival, there is something quite satisfying and comforting about the rumbling noise.
Saturday
I love waking up and crawling straight out of bed and into the fresh air. I munched on some fruit for breakfast and then headed to the Little Espresso van for coffee, while the others got breakfast and cake from the W.I. stall. Then we all explored the Retreat area and had a chat to two great little companies who are doing great things in their area:
Guitar Wrists (www.theguitarwrist.co.uk) who make bespoke jewellery from artists’ used guitar strings, with the profits going to the artists’ charity of choice. The jewellery is fab. Go check them out!
Heads Above The Waves (www.hatw.co.uk_ who are a not-for-profit organisation raising awareness of depression and self harm in young people. They have a great selection of t-shirts and hoodies to choose from to support the charity.
Glitter Sisters are a little store providing glitter and braids. I enjoyed having my hair plaited; it was so relaxing while listening to False Heads on the Neu stage.
Snack time, and this time I had Vietnamese Squid from Squid Inc whilst listening to Spielbergs on the Axiom stage.
We only managed to listen to one song by Lotus Eater at the Cave before heading over to catch The Skints’ acoustic set at the Forest Sessions, and we settled in here for the afternoon, listening to Ducking Punches (go Xtra Mile!), Deaf Havana, Andy Cairns (of Therapy?) and Tony Wright (ex-Terrorvision). Such a great place to chill for the afternoon. Loved all of the acoustic sets. There was one song that stood out for me and that was Ducking Punches’ ‘Six Years’. There were a few tears during this set. Thank you, Dan, for sharing your loss of a friend from suicide. It’s not easy to open up and talk, as it’s a wound that never seems to quite heal, but we need to talk about this tragic way of losing someone, as the ripple effect left behind is huge. Talking about it might just save someone else’s life.
Time for tea, so we headed back over and caught some of Wicca Phase Springs Eternal and decided we wanted some of Becky’s Bhajis before catching some of Everytime I Die on the Main Stage. Great watching everyone who had crowd surfed re-join the crowd and head straight back in for another surf. I heard one lad managed this 58 times!
Final sets of the night were Therapy? on the Axiom stage and Deaf Havana on the Main Stage. Both great sets. 2000treesm more than anything, shows it’s always hard trying to split your time between two bands, but well worth it ,and fairly easy given it is a medium-sized festival (and one of the best in the UK as well!),
What a fab festival! Great music. Great food. Great people. Great vibe.
Thank you!
Look forward to joining you in the VIP camping section again another year!