Saturday at Stoke Park, the 20th Anniversary of GuilFest

by Moon

Saturday arrived with rain as per usual at British festivals. Luckily there were plenty of stages inside marquees allowing people to shelter.

Thankfully the skies cleared long enough for Saint Jude to shine on the Good Time Stage - not surprisingly,  the band has been nominated for a Classic Rock “Best New Band” award.

Click through for more from Saturday and links to
18 photo sets from Saturday, 16 July, at GuilFest

We managed to catch Sound Of Guns on the Main stage and then, heading back towards the Vive Le Rock & Big Cheese stages before the next downpour, we happened upon The Fabulous Fezheads ("England’s Premier Sand Dance Vaudevillian Illusionists” as they call themselves) spilling out of the Green Tea Rooms Tea…which was obviously just not large enough to contain them. Poor old Keith the Camel had to stay outside – an entertaining act to say the least.

The Main stage bands didn’t entice us from shelter for a while so we checked out Dinosaur Pile Up (what a great band name!!), DC Fontana, Anti Nowhere League, Marner Brown, Night Of Treason, Sonic Boom Six and Subsource.

Skurvi from Brighton pounded out some old school punk rock with well thought out lyrics and a dash of humor. Anzi Destruction (from Finland) gave us the most metal rock of the day so far with Ben Christo from Sisters Of Mercy standing in on guitar as if he’d played with the band for years.

We also braved the muddy walk & occasional cloudbursts to see Edei and Kate Rusby and were taken back to the 70s with Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel.

Today’s crowd seemed to be getting younger –they couldn’t ALL be dragging their parents to the Kid Zone could they? Oh wait! They were there to see N-Dubz and Peter Andre! The screaming from the pre-teens was deafening in front of N-Dubz and just as bad in the Peter Andre crowd but at least the GuilFest organisers had catered for all age groups - younger brothers could be parked at the Pokemon Headquarters and the littlest festival goers had to accompany their parents to the Kid Zone for Peppa Pig and story time from the enchanting Mr John Row.

Razorlight brought us back to adulthood with a polished performance although I had a hard time taking my eyes off the bassist’s ten gallon hat!

Skindred polished off the day with their own unique brand of ragga metal which had the audience jumping, moshing and circle pits forming – along with Anzi Destruction, they one of the Bands of the Day for us.

Click a band name below to go to a BFMN Exclusive photo set by
Moonshayde Photography and Ben Smith Photography

Anti Nowhere League
Anzi Destruction
DC Fontana
Dinosaur Pile Up
Edei
Kate Rusby
Marner Brown
N-Dubz
Night of Treason
Peter Andre
Razorlight
Saint Jude
Skindred
Skurvi
Sonic Boom Six
Sound of Guns
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
Subsource