Bearded Theory 2022

[Rumblestripe]

Some random pictures from my weekend. These are linked from my Google account so hopefully everyone can see them? I normally use Flickr but I had uploaded first to Google to share with my brother so I tried this and it worked (or appeared to!)

[Gnomicide]

2 hours ago, Rumblestripe said:

Some random pictures from my weekend. These are linked from my Google account so hopefully everyone can see them? I normally use Flickr but I had uploaded first to Google to share with my brother so I tried this and it worked (or appeared to!)

Just lots of this for me I'm afraid.

[Losing my hair]

Many, many thanks to everybody who popped into the Oxfam shop, as always with Bearded everybody was so friendly and fun. We had a fabulous weekend and can't wait to do it again next year.

I still managed to see some music - highlights for me were Nova Twins, Frank Turner, Patti Smith - one of the best festival sets I have seen and easily the best I have seen her - Billy Nomates, October Drift and Flaming Lips.

[Johnnyseven]

2nd time to BT this year and loved it. My mates came for their 1st time with their 3 kids and loved it too. Only gripe is the queue to the Woodland on Saturday night, I don't remember any queues in 2019. I went to Peter Hook half an hour before his start time and the queue start was at the Convoy Cabaret Tent! That's just ridiculous. I saw the post saying it was for Covid measures but it's not like everyone was spaced out over the whole woodland, they were all bunched down the front with loads of space at the back and sides. They really need to look at who they are booking at that stage, for a 2nd stage punters really don't expect to be joining queues that long. They either need a bigger 2nd stage or put smaller acts on there.

Also a minor gripe about the loos. In 2019 there were plenty of loos for the amount of punters, this year there were queues everywhere - the number of loos seemed the same so there must've been a lot more people there. The toilet numbers in the campsites seemed to be a bit odd, one block of 8 no matter the size of the field - great if a small field but no so good for a big one.

Edited June 1, 2022 by Johnnyseven

[Fearless_Fish]

Well it was my first time, and I must say it's a lovely little festival 🙂 My partner and I choose our festivals based on "vibe", and this was a lovely relaxed affair with lovely punters. The cherry on the cake was the fact that for our tastes, the line-up was great for the size of the festival. We love Patti Smith and the Flaming Lips, and both were excellent. We're lucky if we have two headliners we'd like as much at Glastonbury, let alone somewhere a fraction of the size.

I enjoyed the food and drink - the Goan Fish Curry was as usual a safe bet. We also had pizza, fish 'n' chips (chips were a bit disappointing), Thai curry (OK), Gyros (expensive for what you got), some Sri-Lankan curry (can't remember what it was called) and more pizza! The cider supplies at the bar lasted just - I just to say managed to get the end of a bag of Old Rosie on Sunday so that was another success (albeit so close to disaster!).

My only real gripe (besides the Woodland's queues) was the organisation of the accessibility camping area. We stayed in this area as my partner was 8 months pregnant (you may have noticed her waddling around!). First off, we arrived at the main car park and were told we were at the right place, and that the accessibility car park was close to the camping. However, we were sure this was wrong as we were told we could unload our car at our actual tent. After speaking with 3 people and following a radio call we were sent around to the correct place. However once we got to the correct place, we had a steward who tried to send us back to where we came. Hence a long conversation, with us having to find emails to prove we were at the right place, and after another radio conversation we were grudgingly allowed through to the campsite.

All was well and I even enjoyed a shower on Friday morning! However, the showers didn't work on Saturday or Sunday (no water), or Monday (no heat). Now for us that was a mere inconvenience - we're used to being unclean at festivals! However as another person pointed out to us, other people in the accessible camping field had a much greater need for showers. In fact after going back and forth several times on Sunday morning I finally relented and went to fill my water bottles up for a tent wash, only to realise that our one solitary tap no longer supplied any water either... I say one solitary tap - there were three taps but inexplicably two of them were behind the fence and therefore unusable. Leaving just one tap (that I'm aware of) with no sink for the field. In fact, I think water was poorly signed throughout the festival.

The only other accessibility-based gripe was one day on the viewing platform. I got my partner setup on the viewing platform, then went to get a pint, and her a cup of tea. The stewards were loathe to let me on as I didn't have a pass - despite me saying I was bringing a drink for my partner who was on the platform. They eventually relented and told me I had 10 minutes until I had to get off. During those 10 minutes my partner used the toilet and spoke to the stewards and they then said I was fine to stay with her for the upcoming set. However, I then felt uncomfortable going on the platform on my own for the rest of the weekend (until Sunday when there were some lovely stewards on). I only actually watched a few sets from the platform all weekend, as I much prefer being down the front anyway - but we ended up altering our plans so that we'd arrive at the platform together just in case.

We'll definitely be back in the future. Last year we went to Green Man and loved it. And if I was forced to pick, I'd say Green Man edged it ever so slightly, however Bearded Theory is cheaper, plus two hours closer to home, so overall it's hard to pick which we'd do next! That said, they're in May and August, so in future that's a nice recovery gap to do both...

[Rumblestripe]

20 hours ago, Gnomicide said:

Just lots of this for me I'm afraid.

Buggger. OK I'll pop them into Flickr

[ciderbus]

On 5/30/2022 at 11:16 PM, Pinhead said:

The traditional vodka jelly couple didn't seem to reappear this year - anyone else see them?

He was baffled that people kept asking him about rumours that he had retired or been really ill!

Didn't see him Sunday so hopefully he made his cash early doors this time and had a day off.

This story about some assauts was a big surprise and worry given how chilled it all is.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-derbyshire-61673528

[timespeedsup]

On 5/31/2022 at 1:05 PM, idb said:

 

Did anyone that watched The Hives think it felt like they thought they were performing a 30 min set only to be told they had to perform an hour? I’ve been a fan if there’s for years, and I know he’s a great frontman but there was a lot of filler and I got the impression he wasn’t too pleased that they crowd weren’t fully onboard. I suppose saying “come on Birmingham” didn’t help his cause.

I wondered that too but assumed it was all part of the act. Similarly I'm guessing it's the singer's Birthday every time they play. Possibly my favourite act of a high class weekend. 

[Nobody Interesting]

2 hours ago, timespeedsup said:

I wondered that too but assumed it was all part of the act. Similarly I'm guessing it's the singer's Birthday every time they play. Possibly my favourite act of a high class weekend. 

29th May 1978 he was born.

[Gnomicide]

17 hours ago, ciderbus said:

He was baffled that people kept asking him about rumours that he had retired or been really ill!

Didn't see him Sunday so hopefully he made his cash early doors this time and had a day off.

This story about some assauts was a big surprise and worry given how chilled it all is.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-derbyshire-61673528

I saw Vodka Jellie Man out and about on Sunday, enjoying the festival by the looks of things.

[DaveN]

First time at BT and loved it! Thought it was a cracking festival and just the sort of size I now enjoy. Favourites over the weekend included Frank Turner, Hives, Bob Vylan, Placebo, Dubioza Kolektiv but particularly enjoyed a number of acts in Maui Waui of which The Lehmanns Brothers were the best.

Things that could be improved? The Woodland queue thing did mean that by Sunday we were no longer bothering to see bands there, life and festivals are too short for standing in lines. I would also say that the noise bleed from the pirate ship into the Maui Waui was pretty bad. Maybe a rejig of the site, taking out some of the barely used Fairground elements, introducing more toilets and moving the odd stage around would help things.

We will be back next year and we will be bringing along family and friends. Good stuff 

[ciderbus]

On 6/3/2022 at 6:04 PM, DaveN said:

First time at BT and loved it! Thought it was a cracking festival and just the sort of size I now enjoy. Favourites over the weekend included Frank Turner, Hives, Bob Vylan, Placebo, Dubioza Kolektiv but particularly enjoyed a number of acts in Maui Waui of which The Lehmanns Brothers were the best.

Good shout. We went in for (what turned out to be)the Lehmanns Brothers without any idea who they were and ended up near the front absolutely loving them, great festival set.

[Karlhippy]

Other real gripe was the queue into the Woodland. Couldn't get in for Bob Vylan.

The fairground is 'maybe' a non-entity [in my opinion of course]

[kerplunk]

Review and photos

https://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/beardedtheory/2022/review.shtml

[Gnomicide]

On 6/11/2022 at 9:57 AM, kerplunk said:

Review and photos

https://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/beardedtheory/2022/review.shtml

Great review. 

[Rumblestripe]

2 hours ago, Gnomicide said:

Great review. 

Yup agreed, highlighted some great stuff I missed. Of course you can't see everything even at a relatively small festival. I have to say that I didn't have any problems getting into Woodland with the exception of trying to go from Pallet to Woodland after Patti Smith to see Peter Hook, but we made a decision to watch Patti's whole set knowing we'd struggle to get in to see PH but we managed to get in in time to see him finish with "Love Will Tear Us Apart".

[WS_Jack_III]

On 5/31/2022 at 1:05 PM, idb said:

Did anyone that watched The Hives think it felt like they thought they were performing a 30 min set only to be told they had to perform an hour? I’ve been a fan if there’s for years, and I know he’s a great frontman but there was a lot of filler and I got the impression he wasn’t too pleased that they crowd weren’t fully onboard. I suppose saying “come on Birmingham” didn’t help his cause.

It's always like that, Pelle goes on like that as part of the act, I always look at it as a bit of a piss take of the whole rock and roll thing.

He acts like they're the best band in the world, he even did it the year the Stones played Glastonbury, making out The Hives should have been headlining instead.

They did cut out Two Timing Touch and Broken Bones which I was gutted about and they definitely could have fit in as they had 5 mins to spare. Tick tick boom is usually stretched out to around 10 minutes with the whole band introduction thing. 


They should have headlined a night for me to be honest but then I'm biased as they were they main band I wanted to see over the weekend.

Edited June 13, 2022 by WS_Jack_III

[WS_Jack_III]

On 6/3/2022 at 6:43 AM, timespeedsup said:

I wondered that too but assumed it was all part of the act. Similarly I'm guessing it's the singer's Birthday every time they play. Possibly my favourite act of a high class weekend. 

It was his actual birthday 😂

I had to check because I too thought he was just saying it.

[Gnomicide]

Patti's After The Goldrush. As beautiful as I remember it.

 

 

[Perks]

On 6/11/2022 at 9:57 AM, kerplunk said:

Review and photos

https://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/beardedtheory/2022/review.shtml

Great review, cheers

Such a beautiful festival, really is a highlight of my year