REVIEW: Truck Competition 2025 noticed Bloc Get together, Nothing However Thieves, Kasabian and Courteeners rule the roost at Hill Farm in Oxfordshire and Day by day Star’s Sam Huntley was in rock heaven

Truck Competition 2025 turned a farm in Oxfordshire right into a raucous indie rock celebration.

A beautiful farm in Oxfordshire? In all probability not the primary place you’d count on to mosh to Kasabian hits in a raging sea of followers beneath a burning sky scorched with inexperienced flares and smoke. However Hill Farm is not like different farms. Actually, Truck prides itself on being the “the UK’s most warped village fête” – and you may quickly see why.

Solely at Truck will you catch individuals crowd-surfing to the Oxford Symphony Orchestra whereas somebody in an enormous inexperienced T-rex costume roams across the area, taking selfies with pageant goers. Enjoyable reality: The primary ever dinosaur fossil to be discovered was really in Oxfordshire, however I digress…

We arrive on the campsite on a scorching Thursday afternoon that assessments the human spirit (particularly, our capacity to hold all of our pageant gear). We pitch up our tents, crack open a can and take in the pageant buzz forward of a giant weekend (is there any higher feeling?).

Bloc Get together have occupied a particular place in my coronary heart since my faculty days and that How I Met Your Mom scene will get me each time. So with the ability to tick Bloc Get together off of my gig bucket listing earlier than the weekend had even begun is large. Bravo, Truck Competition.

They open with So Right here We Are in a blistering set full of Silent Alarm hits – Banquet, Helicopter, Looking For Witches and Like Consuming Glass, and extra – to mark the album’s twentieth anniversary. Singer Kele Okereke is on nice kind and drummer Louise Bartle steals my coronary heart. The set flies by they usually end with This Trendy Love, the thunderous ballad that I might got here for, in what was a fairly particular second for me.

However the indie celebration does not cease there. All you’ll want to do is duck into a close-by tent and you will find a DJ operating the decks till the early hours. We sing our hearts out to noughties bangers contained in the This Feeling tent and I danger ruining my vocal chords on Day 1 (I blame Stereophonics).

These in the hunt for a drum and bass or techno repair aren’t forgotten. No matter style you are on the lookout for is probably going just a few hundred metres away as the entire levels are so shut collectively.

Nothing However Thieves take the reigns on Friday and blow us away with a blistering set that begins with the thunderous bassline of Welcome to the DCC and the fierce falsetto of frontman Connor Mason. Completely electrical. Actual Love Track, with its screeching guitar lick and anthemic refrain, by no means fails to ship shivers down my backbone. Conor, an enormous expertise, even treats us to the band’s rendition of No Doubt’s hit Do not Converse.

Blossoms have been on earlier than and, sadly, they did not fare practically so properly, because of a really muddy sound combine. In equity, it most likely sounded higher nearer to the stage, and we have been caught behind the sound engineers.

We catch a few of Alfie Templeman’s set over at The Market Stage and the 22-year-old is killing it up there. A shout out to jazz/pop sensation Phoebe Rea, too, who dazzles the BBC Introducing tent together with her infectious power and cracking voice, backed by a wonderful band.

Honourable point out to the Tipsy Cow tent for delivering dangerously good occasions at a surprisingly early hour. Usually my evening peaks when By no means Too A lot by Luther Vandross comes on however right here, we get all the way down to enterprise means earlier than the solar goes down. Looks like this oasis of pop nostalgia caught on rapidly, as a result of once we return after dusk the place is crammed. All hail the cow of absolute intoxication.

How a lot for a pint, you ask? Nicely it is £6.45 and £6.60 for Brewdog lager (440ml) and £6.70 for his or her Wingman IPA. Not low-cost, however I’ve seen worse costs at British arenas and it is roughly London costs. Spirit and mixers will set you again at the least £7.50 and wine is £32.50 for a bottle (blimey).

You will discover burgers for about £12, chips for simply over a fiver, and different dishes like curry and duck wraps for £13. Loads of veggie choices too. I used to be impressed by the Really feel Good Meals Corridor, a bustling charity tent which has tons of strong breakfast choices obtainable – and lighter bites like toast and crumpets for these not desirous to go too massive on brekkie.

And here is a pro-tip for these desirous to beat the queues when grabbing their morning espresso – head inside the world. It is tremendous quiet within the morning so it is the proper time to take a look at the stalls – and there is a respectable providing of classic clothes for the fashionistas on the market.

Saturday sees rowdy kings Kasabian take the throne and unleash their marketing campaign of indie rock chaos on the gang. Up go the flares and everybody goes feral when the refrain of Fireplace erupts. Hundreds of us bouncing collectively and belting out our favorite songs; that is British pageant season in all of its beer-soaked glory.

It was an extra-special day for me, although, as considered one of my finest mates occurred to be DJing in The Faucet Room simply hours earlier than. Hailing from Lancashire, disco home DJ Kate Whitaker blends golden period disco with rousing home anthems and funky mixes.

She’s a pure! It does not take lengthy for her to get us grooving (we did not cease) and she or he packs out the tent with punters, which is nice to see. You will discover me pictured with stated gifted pal above!

Earlier than that, Scouting For Ladies gave us all a good time. The pop rockers know precisely learn how to work a crowd and throw tons of retro easter eggs like Come On Eileen into their action-packed set that takes us again to our schooldays.

By Sunday, the mixture of hangover and sleep deprivation gnaws at us all however it’s Unwritten icon Natasha Bedingfield who’s there to drag us out of the darkness and into the sunshine (an excessive amount of mild, really, I received sunburnt). She blows everybody away together with her gorgeous voice and instructions the world like absolutely the professional that she is.

Now for some Oxford Symphony Orchestra appreciation. They’ve grow to be a staple for Truck Competition, and it is simple to see why. They have been nothing in need of sensible and drew an enormous noon crowd. Seeing a crowd moshing to a classical rendition of Ladies Aloud’s Love Machine is sort of objectively humorous, however the orchestra performed genuinely great items such because the well-known Nessun dorma opera (famously sung by Pavarotti).

What a weekend. We have been too maxed out to make it to Franz Ferdinand and Courteeners and that is testomony to how a lot enjoyable we had. Truck Competition is a roaring indie rock celebration you do not wish to miss. With round 30,000 attendees it is a smaller beast than some UK festivals however it does not lack the chunk. The headliners are massive, the vibes are mighty and the Tipsy Cow is… intoxicated.

Truck Competition returns in 2026, happening between the Twenty third-Twenty sixth July. Tickets for subsequent yr’s Truck are on sale now and you may seize them right here: https://truckfestival.com/tickets/.

Have you ever joined Threads? Comply with Day by day Star to maintain updated on all issues showbiz right here.

Need all the largest Showbiz and TV information straight to your inbox? Join our free Day by day Star Showbiz publication.