The Rock and Bike Festival shows you dont need overpaid legendary acts to make a festival gr

The Rock and Bike Fest 2012

Thursday 12th to Saturday 14th July 2012
Elvaston Castle Showground, Borrowash Road, Derby, England MAP
£40 for the weekend, children under 12 free

This year Rock and Bike Festival was set in the vast fields of Carnfield Hall. In terms of weather this year was a stark contrast to one year ago when punters were greeted with wet and muddy conditions. This time it was glorious sunshine throughout the event. I lost count of the amount of people with red raw arms, necks, and faces due to sunburn.

Rock and Bike festival can't compete with the major festivals in terms of big name acts, however they do attempt to be innovative with who they select to headline, and this year saw Danny Bowes & Ben Matthews from the classic rock group Thunder headlining alongside Dr Feelgood, and John Coghlan's Quo.

Despite the lack of big names, Rock and Bike excel in the value for money department, forty pounds for a ticket for the entire weekend, with free camping. Not many festivals can say that the camping is free.

Rock and Bike regulars know that they can expect a peaceful and friendly atmosphere in an environment that is spacious and easy to sit down and watch the bands play. Even the security team are helpful and go out of their way to ensure people have a great time.

The layout this year seemed to be logical and people friendly, the two stages were in marquees which were just a stone's throw from each other, so walking was kept to a bare minimum if you had to get from the main stage to the second stage. This was a godsend considering how intense the sunshine was.

The organisers pride themselves on making Rock and Bike family friendly, so in their wisdom they have put on a free cinema tent, which had cartoons showing. There was a play area and an archery area. They had fair rides (including tea cups) and even had hook-a-duck. If that was not enough to keep the children entertained they even hosted a children's fancy dress competition.

Even some of the bands took into consideration that there may be children watching them perform and therefore altered their usual on stage swearing to a more suitable dialogue.

Thursday night saw Danny & Ben (Thunder) play an acoustic type set, including a different and amusing version of Black Sabbaths 'War Pigs'. As you would expect, they played Thunder songs in a toned down fashion. There is no denying that due to their experience with Thunder they are able to press all the right buttons to make the crowd feel as if they are being given their money’s worth. Danny and Ben gave the impression that they were genuinely pleased to be playing and that they appeared to be appreciative of their fans.

Rock and Bike has built up a reputation for booking some of the best tribute bands around, and this year was no exception. They had AC/DCUK (I don’t think I need to tell you who they are a tribute to). Bon Jovi UK, A Foreigners Journey, Rammlied, and Mentallica to name just a small few.

It is always dangerous being a tribute band to some of the biggest legendary rock bands around, as pure rock fans would argue that you shouldn't replicate a masterpiece. However these tribute bands are exceptionally good and I certainly would have no objections to paying to see them live in their own show. The highlight for me was Mentallica (tribute to Metallica); they didn't shy away from some of Metallicas trickier songs such as 'One' and 'Master Of Puppets'. The lead vocalist was even mindful of children in the audience and avoided swearing throughout the set.

AC/DCUK were impressive and got the crowd rocking the night away with hits such as 'Thunderstruck' and 'Highway to Hell'. However their stage entrance was rather disappointing as the lead vocalist made his way to the stage on what looked like a Harley Davidson, however only the fans that were standing on the far side could see what was happening, the masses just had to make do with an empty stage until the vocalist had managed to get onto the stage. Musically though you would be hard pushed to find a band that can come this close to sounding like AC/DC.

Bon Jovi UK were also a band that pulled a large crowd and left the sunburnt crowd smiling from ear to ear with their homage to Bon Jovi. The good thing with a tribute band is that you don’t have to wade through boring tracks like at a real Bon Jovi gig; instead you get hit after hit and all of the fan favourites throughout the entire set. Even 'Always' was included in this set which was a surprise considering the real Bon Jovi hardly ever play it live due to Jon Bon Jovi struggling to hit those notes. All of the classic stadium anthems were included in this performance 'Livin' on a Prayer', 'You Give Love A Bad Name'. There was a surprise for one of the festival organisers when she was asked to sing 'It's My Life' with the band. Thankfully she did it justice.

This year Rock and Bike festival felt like it has finally established itself as a permanent fixture on the music festival calendar. One of the reasons that punters keep coming back every year is because once you have attended you get a genuine sense that the organisers actually care about the fans and try to make it as enjoyable as possible for the entire family without it costing extortionate amounts of money. For many Rock and Bike festival punters it is this that keeps them coming back. It just goes to show that you don’t need an overpaid legendary band to play to make a festival great.

Fingers crossed that the Rock and Bike Festival will be just as good next year. Hopefully it will stay at Carnfield Hall as it seemed like the perfect location.

review by: Luke Seagrave

photos by: Luke Seagrave