Nozstock is a homely non-commercial weekend gathering

Nozstock is a relatively new festival, now in its 5th year and describes itself as Herefordshire's favourite boutique festival. That is underselling it a bit, it is a small but quite beautifully balanced event, a bit odd but that adds to the charm. The location is the farm of Pete 'Nos' Nosworthy in a small valley farm near Bromyard, easy to find and access with simple but effective organisation to get onto site. The festival was sold out at around 5000 but there were still a number of tickets available on the gate.

The site itself has a feel that is usually to be found at events such as Croissant Neuf, there is a tremendous amount of effort put into making and decorating just about everything on site. The crew have put a lot of effort and inventiveness into producing a mixture of bizarre signage, cupcakes in trees, nozcritters and random ideas.

The main(Orchard) stage is small by usual standards but plenty big enough and fitting to the setting. The Garden stage is close by with a handbuilt shed feel sitting next to the farmhouse. In all there are 6 music stages, a comedy tent called the laughing stock, the Bantam of the Opera used for performance and a kids area that was well used. One thing that stuck us is that despite the close proximity and sizes the sound was universally good with minimum sound bleed apparent.

Three of the stages, the Coppice (in a coppice naturally), the Bull Pen (guess where) and the cubicles (converted cow shed) host a strong dance line up. The Coppice was hosted by Tribe of Frog, psytrance and electro ruled for the weekend. Bull Pen had Sika Studios and Mooch on board providing Hip Hop and Underground, whilst the Cubicles fed the punters a diet of Dub and DnB.

The Main stage saw some big performances of which the stand out set was The Correspondents, with Mr Bruce and Mr Chuckles providing an epic performance. Headliners The Jim Jones Revue, Alabama 3, and Vintage Trouble were also seen to deliver handsomely. It goes without saying that Ade Edmondson and , The Bad Shepherds went down a storm, as did The Wurzels who finished with a dance version of 'Combine Harvester' and a Wurzelised cover of 'Ruby' by the Kaiser Chiefs.

Two Man Ting provided the perfect hangover cure on Saturday lunchtime which got the punters moving to their enticing rhythmic Afro-beats. CW Stoneking was his usual self with a well balanced set. The nice touch was that during the day there was a lot of effort put into showcasing local talent and smaller outfits such as Sid Sings, and 6 Day Riot.

The Garden Stage provided an eclectic mix ranging from dubstep to acoustic Foreign Beggars, to a guy with a guitar called Ragtime Ewan.

The Bandstand as a third stage was dedicated to up and coming talent with a bit of Marmite feel, some of the bands were not going to appeal to all but that is what made it interesting. Mook will be remembered, as will the delightfully named 100% Beefcock and the Titsburster.

At 65 quid for an advance ticket this is good value and for that you get a homely not commercial gathering. You could almost say that the experience may convince people that there is a better way to do festivals rather than relying on sponsorship and bad lager.

Latest Updates