IDLES - The Wyldes, Cornwall - The Review

 

 

 

 

Driving around some quiet country roads near Bude in Cornwall, you’d be forgiven for not realising there’s a delightfully idyllic music festival happening just on off one of the turn roads; The Wyldes is a glorious campspot secluded from the main lines of civilisation, and a perfect location for a boutique music gathering drawing in many of the southwest revellers and beyond. Previously used as the historic location for Leopallooza, which ran from 2006 to 2023, The Wyldes concert events are now a significant touring spot for the British Summer, alongside Dreamland in Margate and Bristol’s Westonbirt Arboretum. The venue has a capacity of 10,000 but never feels anything less than totally intimate, and there’s space and tables and standing tables around the main stage to always feel like there’s ample space. 

 

This year’s music lineup ranges from Scottish rockers Simple Minds to dance legends Underworld, alongside newer pop stars as Anne-Marie and Mae Stephens. It’s the final night of the bill, with South West punk ferocious IDLES headlining, that draws much of the attention. IDLES recently headlined the Other Stage of Glastonbury, after a round of public PR washing convincing promoters that the band is worthy of being taken seriously as a headliner. Joe Talbot and co have always been popular in this neck of the woods, with Talbot telling the Wyldes crowd that he grew up in Exeter before he ended up leaving Devon and Cornwall for Bristol. Countless IDLES t-shirts litter the mostly-male crowd, and the Wyldes as a venue exhibits all the comfortable lodge aesthetics that you’d expect. Glamping, a huge assortment of beers and a post-apocalyptic car on fire as an art installation. You can genuinely understand quickly how The Wyldes has become a really popular niche festival stop. 

 

 

As for the music itself, IDLES clearly enjoy having a devoted crowd who’ve paid their money because they are the draw, and within the first few seconds of the five-piece hitting the stage, there’s always a strong undercurrent of menace, malice, the threat of abuse and an explosive mixture of violent punk abandon and anarchy and destruction. If that sounds dramatic, Talbot ranges from asking the crowd to chant “f*ck the King” to “Free Palestine” to asking/ordering the crowd to stop throwing their drinks towards the band - due to the “electrical equipment on stage”. On a dime, Talbot can then devote a song to his dead mother who “drank herself to death” due to loneliness and then lament about the importance of mental health and checking in on the loved ones that are lonely. Such is the volatility and carnal rage in Talbot’s eyes, that he’s irrestable as a frontman even if his vocals are dog-ragged and bereft of musicality. He’s so coercive in his demeanour that even by the second song he’s demanding the crowd part in the middle so that guitarist Lee Kiernan can get amongst the audience participation action. The punters love every moment and if the world were to end tonight in The Wyldes, they’d be happy. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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