Overview

Off the Tracks has been an established festival for more years than any of us can be bothered to work out. It’s developed a well deserved reputation for hosting some great line-ups, as well as or having a special something in terms of atmosphere that most other festivals lack.

Getting to the site is actually pretty easy, as it’s a couple of miles from junction 23a on the M1, just past East Midlands Airport. That said, the sign for the festival site itself isn’t terribly clear, and we met a couple of people that overshot the festival completely, as indeed we did the first year.

The site itself is split into four main areas. After driving up a wooded lane, you pass through a small market area, which effectively divides the entertainments part of the site from the camping area. Following this road through takes you to a couple of fields used as car parking, while a right turn takes you into a large camping area, used by tents, and campervans. This area is actually a proper campsite, and it provides probably the only festival camping you’ll ever see with electric hook-ups for vans and caravans!

The Market area seemed bigger this year, with around 10 stalls selling the usual array of CD’s, brightly coloured clothing and festival tat, while food was provided by the Organic Café, serving great vegetarian and Vegan food at pretty good prices.

The site is well served with toilets, which are not only plentiful, but also of the flushing porcelain variety. Showers are also available at a pound a pop, with tokens on sale behind the bar.

The entertainment takes place inside a series of converted farm buildings, that comprise two bars (one real ale, and one, erm, not), plenty of inside seating, and a small café area. There’s also a small inside stage that hosts a mixture of bands and films. However, most of the action at Off the Tracks takes place outside though, in a square courtyard reached through the bar area, with a reasonably big stage at the far end. One point to note is that as the event takes place on what are effectively licensed premises, you can’t take your own alcohol into the farm buildings. Still, the beer from the bar is strong, and pretty cheap, so this is less of a hardship than it sounds.

Friday night had a very folky feel, with Dara taking the inside “Barn” stage around 9.15. As Irish as you like, these guys sounded like a ceilidh band on speed, pumping out jig after reel after jig in a set that never slowed down. Apparently, the vocalist was a guest from another band, a fact hard to believe given just how tight they were.

Next up were Kilnaboy, a band described in the programme as “dirty, filthy folkery pokery”, which sounds like a strong recommendation in anyone’s book. If Dara were fast and frantic, then Kilnaboy were faster and more frantic still, leaving the audience hyperventilating by the end of their set.

Finally, to slow things down, the evening was closed by a showing of Fritz Laing’s film , Metropolis. This felt like a slightly odd step-change for the compared to the high octane music that preceded it, and with much of the audience plainly a bit worse for wear, something that required slightly less concentration might have been a better choice.

After a somewhat long night in the bar, Saturday on the outside stage started mercifully quietly, with Delta Blues played with passion by Spokane, a guitar and vocal two piece covering classic blues songs by Ry Cooder, Robert Jones. If you like Blues, you’ll absolutely love them, but if the words “I woke up this morning” give you hives, then best avoid.

Next up on the outside stage, Yorkshire’s James Raynard, a young man with a guitar, and occasionally fiddle singing a combination of traditional, and self penned folk songs. Within minutes it’s clear that Mr Raynard is a bit of a revelation. Brimming with a quiet confidence, he plays classic folk songs in an edgy, emotional style, combined with a simplicity that only the most talented can pull off successfully. By the end of his set, I thought we might be looking at the next Martin Carthy, and now having listened to his album, I’m even more convinced.

Nick Harper who took to the main stage around 3pm, really must be one of the most outrageously talented people on the planet, as for around an hour the audience was battered with some stupendously good guitar playing, and vocal acrobatics that would make a lycra clad rock singer wince. Startlingly original is an often overused description of acts that defy exact classification, but I can confirm that on this occasion, Nick Harper was both startling, and original.

Before the evening break, festival favourites Seize the Day took to the stage. As well as being the winner of the award for “band most often advertised in a toilet”, Seize the Day are a very original, very political, and generally very good 5-6 piece combining vocal harmony, drumming, sax and acoustic guitars in a way that should never work, but somehow does. This set is no exception, with familiar songs like, no one’s slave, Work Song and Designer Kids punched out with the kind of passion born out of genuine belief. By the time Theo steps forward to sing United States, the whole audience, including me, was absolutely hooked.

Music returned around 7pm with the 10 O’clock horses, a nasty sweaty bunch of boys playing something described as “the levellers in a blender with the selector with a dash of massive attack”. I’m not sure about the massive attack part, but the levellers and selector were clearly audible, as indeed was the blender. Great fun.

As 8pm arrived, the festival assumed a very Deep South feel, with first L’il Jim, then Hayseed Dixie taking the stage. It was unclear whether the L’il Jim of name represented the entire band, or just the rather tall looking gentlemen playing an accordion. Either way, what we ended up with was a very accomplished display of Zydeco, a kind of frantic bayou dance music that’s difficult not to jump about to.

Finally come Hayseed Dixie, a band of which much has been written already. Now I must admit that I’m not a fan, and had I not been reviewing the festival, I would have headed off to find something better to do, such as hack off my ears with a saw. However, while I watched them, I did develop a grudging respect for the sheer energy, musicianship and enjoyment that these guys bring to what they do. Hayseed Dixie are, I am now forced to admit, a great live band, especially if you’re drunk, and have a dancing head on.

Saturday night brought more slightly odd silent films, and possibly the best kept secret of the festival, the late night jamming in the bar. Seemingly on every other table a group of people with guitars were to be found singing and playing away. This included at least two members of Hayseed Dixie who were to be found strumming away with festival locals, and indeed were still going strong when I left around 4am.

Sunday started way too early for many of us after the late night jamming of the night before, and it was a much reduced group that finally staggered down the hill for Sunday’s entertainment, which started with a very folky feel with Dara and Megson, then quickly headed off on an African tangent.

Daraka prove to be the ideal cure for the weary, combining as they did a whole combination of African Highlife, Soca and Reggae, each tune seemingly more upbeat and happy than the last. By the end of their set, much of a seemingly burned out audience were up and dancing again.

After a break that included dancing from the Urban Tribal Belly Dance group (which was a lot better, and less frightening than it sounds), the African theme continued with Kasai Masai, a two piece, playing traditional music from the Congo. After a gentle start, Kasai Masai took things up to a blistering pace. Half way through their set, they seemed to be generating so much sound that I wondered whether they’d smuggled an orchestra on stage. However, after two encores, the same two men walked off the stage, leaving an audience a good deal more energised than they been before.

The penultimate act of the night was Doreen Thobikle. Dorren seemed to stick with the now familiar African theme of start slow…then go mad. Her first song was a relatively calm, though beautiful affair involving a percussion and voice, but quickly built into a Kwazulu frenzy.

Finally, it was time for Go Lem System to close the Festival. Hailing from Buenos Aries, via Barcelona, GLS are a 6 piece that come close to defying description, mixing Latin beats and grooves, with some dub and reggae thrown in for good measure. The closet comparison I could find was to Manou Chou, who I later discovered had indeed guested on their first album. What I can tell you with certainty is that this was a band on fire, who only managed to get off the stage after more encores than I could by that time count. What was if anything even more impressive, despite the intensity they’d put into the gig, and the travelling, the band, like Hayseed Dixie the night before, were still in the bar, jamming with locals, until gone 4am. Put simply, if this band play anywhere within a hundred miles of you, you should go.

So overall then, were there any downsides to the 9th Spring Off the Tracks? To be honest very few. Food options at the festival remain fairly limited, with just the one organic café, and the burger bar selling inedible lumps of something indeterminate by mostly surly young girls, but that really is about it. There really is something great about Off the Tracks, a certain character that you just don’t get anywhere else. I can’t figure out whether it’s the people, or the atmosphere, the late night jamming, or the characters that you only ever see at this festival, and in a way I don’t want to. What I do know however, is that come the 18th Off the Tracks on the 1st September, I’ll be back. Put simply, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

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