good music, great fun, and enjoyment to be found at the Rock and Bike Festival

This year the Rock and Bike Festival had moved to a new site, this time around it was staged at Elvaston Castle showground in Derby.

The line-up this year consisted of The Sweet, The Quireboys and numerous tribute bands such as The Guns N Roses Experience, and Sack Sabbath to name a small few.

Due to the Rock and Bike Festival still being young in comparison to the major festivals (Download, Leeds/Reading, V, and Glastonbury). It goes without saying that it will be difficult for the organisers of Rock and Bike to ever attract the legendary rock acts such as Metallica, Iron Maiden, and Kiss.

However even though it is lacking in big named bands, the organisers try to make the festival one of the most enjoyable and family friendly festivals in the festival calendar. To be fair they excel at this, and year after year the atmosphere is friendly and fun.

This year the site seemed to be a lot smaller than their previous sites and rather than have an outside stage they had two huge tents which housed the main stage and the second stage. This was a great idea, because you only ever had to walk about 30 metres to get from one stage to another.

There were a handful of stalls selling food and drink at reasonable prices as well as a couple of clothing stalls selling some fantastic T-shirts and leather jackets.

The bands that were playing this year had a wealth of experience and talent such as The Sweet and The Quireboys, so with everything in place and seeming to be the same as all of the previous years, what could have possibly gone wrong?...

…The weather!!

The typical British weather has managed to cause enough disruption to cause some of the bigger festivals to be cancelled. The Rock and Bike Festival felt the full wrath of this year's rain to the point that there were heavy restrictions on vehicle movement onsite.

Due to the rain, the campsite was just one gigantic mud bath. This made it awkward for the bike competition to be viewed in all of its wonderful glory. Usually the bikes would ride into the main arena to collect their prizes; however that was near impossible this year, so it was a pretty low key affair this year.

At least whilst the bands were on, punters could stay dry inside the tents. There is no denying that the constant downpour of rain made it hard work to walk from the car park to the main stage tent and then with the arena floor being waterlogged, it made it a mammoth task just walking from one tent to another, despite being so close together.

Once inside the tents, the vast array of talented bands kept the punters happy. Some of my personal favourites were the Guns N Roses Experience- they dressed up to look like the real Guns N Roses, and sound wise they are very close to the real thing, they did the GNR songs justice, however there was one thing which made it blindingly obvious that they weren't the real Guns N Roses- they started the set on time!

Sack Sabbath was also another band which I have fond memories of. They covered all of the classic Black Sabbath tracks such as 'Paranoid', 'Iron Man' and 'War Pigs'. Sack Sabbath clearly work hard to put on a good show and would be worth checking out when they do a gig nearby.

The Sweet without a doubt had the biggest crowd; there was no breathing space at all in the main stage tent. Even though they have gone through many line-up changes, the energy and sound are as impressive today as it was back in the 70's. It would have been even better if they had arrived in full glam make-up and attire. However the audience seemed more than happy with the retro hits such as 'Blockbuster' and 'Wig Wam Bam'.

Towards the end of the set, Toyah Wilcox joined the band for a rendition of 'Ballroom Blitz'. However some fans were left disappointed as they were under the impression Toyah would be doing a full set judging by the advertisements for this year's event.

The tent emptied and was only one-third full by the time the Quireboys arrived on stage, which must have been disheartening for the band considering what a great back catalogue of songs they have.

As The Quireboys were coming to the end of their set, I made the long treacherous journey back through the mud towards the exit.

There is no denying that the weather had a big impact on this festival. However apart from that, which to be honest is beyond the control of the organisers. Everything else was fun and enjoyable. The music was fabulous and the value for money was exceptional.

The one thing which in my humble opinion would be useful in future would be a list or schedule of the stage times to be available either online or put up somewhere on site or even able to purchase, as I did find myself having to ask numerous people if they knew the running order, to which I just got blank looks.

Apart from those small but easily amended problems, I had a blast and will I go back next year…without a doubt!!

If you like festivals with legendary bands then by all means splash out on the bigger festivals, however if good music and great fun and enjoyment is what you are after then the Rock and Bike Festival is the place to be!!

Roll on Rock and Bike Festival 2013.

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