Rewind Festival North 2024 - The Review

Rewind Festival has gained a reputation for being one of the best festivals dedicated to 80s music (but not exclusively 80s music). The Rewind festival started in 2009, and from that point on it has gone on to be the most well-known music festival dedicated to the 80s era. Each year the Rewind festival is held in numerous locations throughout the UK (Scotland, Capesthorne Hall, Cheshire and Temple Island Meadows) in addition they also hold this event in Dublin, and they have also branched out internationally with the festival also being held in Dubai.

eFestivals decided to go and see what all the fuss was about and made the journey to Capesthorne Hall in Macclesfield to attend Rewind Festival North.

Day tickets for Rewind Festival North were £78 plus booking fee and weekend tickets started from £143 depending on which extras you required. Also factor in the car parking at £16.80 for the weekend or £11.20 per day.

Upon arrival, there was a slight delay with getting into the car park (around 15 minutes) but that should be expected for most events nowadays. There are some festivals where it takes hours to be able to park. So, waiting only 15 minutes was a godsend in comparison to other festivals.

The stewards working in the car park were very helpful and for a change it felt like they wanted to be there, full of enthusiasm and infectious happiness (it’s been a long time since I witnessed festival stewards being that happy and friendly).

Once we had parked up, we headed towards a big purple inflatable sign that had ‘REWIND’ emblazoned on it. This made it extremely clear where we needed to go. After we had got past the friendly security checks, the Rewinders (name of people who attend the Rewind Festival) were greeted with the ‘village’ type section of the festival with stalls to buy food/drink and top up on their 80s merchandise as well as t-shirts with humorous statements on them. In addition to the stalls there were a handful of fun fair rides (dodgems, twister and a swinging thingy), which were blasting out 80s music to prepare punters for the onslaught of 80s live music that would soon be attacking our earlobes from the main stage. The village section also had an inflatable church, which people could get married in if they so wished.

After a short walk through the stalls, Rewinders were greeted with the main arena, one stage (strictly speaking there were two stages, the main stage and the pink flamingo stage, which was used in the evening for a club type night once the main stage acts had finished).

Having only one stage made it easy to plonk yourself and friends down and not have to move for the rest of the day, unlike some bigger festivals where as soon as you find a good spot, you then must move because a band are on the other stage. Wherever you were in this arena, you had a good view of the stage, even if situated right at the back. The arena is banked, which helped obtain a good view of the stage.

Sometimes you are able to sense the atmosphere from the second you walk into a festival and sure enough within a few minutes it was clear that the atmosphere at this event was about having fun and enjoyment.

Many of the Rewinders had turned up in 80’s fancy dress for both days of mostly 80s music.

Over the weekend, there were people dressed as their favourite 80’s artistes (Freddie Mercury, Adam Ant, to name a few) Then some people had come as famous characters from tv and movies of the 80’s (Beetlejuice, He-Man, Top Gun, Baywatch, CHiPS, and WWE wrestlers) and don’t get me started on the amount of neon coloured tutu skirts and wrist bands that were visible. It was clear that the Rewinders had come with the intention of having a great time.

Even though you could easily spend all weekend admiring the costumes that people had turned up in, it was the music that people had come for, and this year’s line-up boasted some of the most iconic 80s artistes such as Midge Ure, Tiffany, Aswad, Kim Wilde, Roland Gift, Tony Hadley, and Nik Kershaw to name a small few.

There were also some artists playing that strictly speaking weren’t famous in the 80’s such as Gabrielle and Boyzlife. In addition to the incredible list of bands they had Billy Ocean headlining the Saturday night, and Squeeze headlining Sunday.

Each day had a dedicated person to compere. Saturday had Jenny Powell has the compere and Sunday had the Doctor from the Doctor and the medics compering.

Saturday

Saturdays line up consisted of Studio 54, Bad Manners, Boyzlife, Gabrielle, Katrina, Altered Images, Tiffany, Roland Gift, Nik Kershaw, Kim Wilde and headliner Billy Ocean.

With each artist only having a short stage time (15-30 minutes) most of them concentrated on belting out their more popular hits, but at a push if they did have any new material they would slip in one new song. The headline acts had been given one hour to take the Rewinders down memory lane to a time when music was quite simply great.

Before settling down for the day to see our 80’s musical heroes in action, we went to get some food, there was lots of choice, and depending on what you desired, it was around £12 for items like chicken with stir fry noodles, it was about £2 pound for a can of coke/tango etc. A bag of six doughnuts were around £8.

Studio 54 live got the first day’s proceedings under way, and they were a wonderful way to gently guide the Rewinders into a day full of epic artistes.

Bad Manners created a wonderful sing-along with the crowd with songs such as ‘My Girl Lollipop,’ ‘Lip up Fatty’ and ‘Can’t Take My Eyes of You’.

Next to take to the stage was Boyzlife, just in case you are not familiar with these, Brian McFadden from Westlife and Keith Duffy from Boyzone formed a boyband supergroup and merged the names of their former bands together to create Boyzlife. Even though I wasn’t expecting much from these, they certainly brought their A-game and impressed the crowd with their music which was more 90s and noughties based. They captivated the Rewind audience with a set full of chart toppers such as ‘When You're Looking Like That’ and ‘World of Our Own’ and a cover of the classic Bee Gees track ‘Words’, as well as the cover version of Billy Joels ‘Uptown Girl’, which I suppose very loosely links them to 80’s music, so all is forgiven. And yes, there were some obligatory boy band choreography thrown in for good measure.

Another artiste that strictly speaking isn’t 80’s music, was Gabrielle, who was an absolute delight to listen to live, hits such as ‘Dreams’ and ‘Rise’ and ‘Out of Reach’ always get a good reaction from the audience, and this hit the spot.

Katrina (as in Katrina and the Waves) is a great vocalist and although there was nothing wrong with her performance, it just felt like the Rewinders were only waiting for the Eurovision hits ‘Walking on Sunshine’ and ‘Love Shine a Light’ to be delivered, and thankfully they were included in the set.

Altered Images delivered a solid set with Clare Grogan’s very distinctive vocals, songs such as ‘I Could Be Happy’ and ‘Happy Birthday’ were always going to be crowd pleasers and tonight was no exception.

Tiffany delivered a set which had a surprise cover of Robbie Willaims ‘Angels’ included, which got the crowd swaying from side to side. Of course, ‘I Think We're Alone Now’ was included in the set. Let’s be honest, it would be difficult to think of any other hits that Tiffany had.

Roland Gifts voice live is incredible, and even after all of these years still sounds as good as it did in the 80s.

Kim Wilde had sound issues at the start of her set, but they were quickly rectified, and she delivered a slick set which was lapped up by the Rewinders. ‘Chequered Love’, and ‘Kids in America’ got the festival crowd dancing and singing like there was no tomorrow.

Nik Kershaw who seems to be a regular guest at Rewind Festival took to the stage and was well received by the audience, songs such as ‘I Won't Let the Sun Go Down on Me’, ‘The Riddle’, and ‘Wouldn’t it Be Good? are always going to hit the spot, and it is easy to forget that Nik has written songs which were used by other artistes such as ‘The One and Only’ which Chesney Hawkes made popular.

Billy Ocean had the privilege of headlining day 1, and he is no stranger to Rewind festival. This being his 8^th appearance at Rewind Festival (if you include all of the Rewind locations).

Mr Ocean knows how to balance the setlist to finds time to include a recent song ‘One World’ and then give the crowd the hits, also with only having one hour and so many hits, it is always going to be difficult to please everyone, but the big hits were certainly included- ‘Loverboy’, ‘Suddenly’, ‘Love Really Hurts Without You’, ‘Red Light Spells Danger’ and ‘Caribbean Queen’, as well as possibly the biggest hit of the 1980s- ‘When the Going Gets Tough’.

It was a great way to bring the first day to an end. Rewind Festival also has a tent called pink flamingo which is where Rewinders can go after the acts on the main stage have finished. Pink Flamingo is a bit like a night club for punters who have some energy left to see in the early hours. There is also a silent disco for people who perhaps don’t quite want to go home or back to their tents straight after the headline act has finished.

Sunday

The arena appeared to have a smaller crowd than on Saturday, but still a vibrant atmosphere. Day two had a line up which included: Shakatak, Aswad, Peter Hook and the Light, Tony Hadley, Living In A Box, Lynx, Hue & Cry, The Christians, Heather Small, Midge Ure, and headliners Squeeze.

Aswad always bring an uplifting feel to any event and with songs such as ‘Shine’ and ‘Don’t Turn Around” they didn’t disappoint.

Next up were Peter Hook and the Light, who were always going to be a hit with the Rewinders with their bass driven songs, as well as the back catalogue of songs from Peter Hooks other bands (Joy Division and New Order) with musical history like that, it was impossible for Peter Hook and the Light not to impress with this such as ‘Blue Monday’, and ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’.

Tony Hadley is another artist that suffers with the curse of being in such a big band in the 80s (Spandau Ballet) that it would be sacrilegious if he didn’t include ‘Gold’ and ‘True’, which he did towards the end of his set.

Living In A Box, Lynx, Hue & Cry, and The Christians, were a pleasure to listen to, but suffered with the issue of being very slick. They performed faultlessly and all of them had created wonderful sing-a-longs from the audience.

Heather Small still has a powerful voice, and she revved the crowd up into a higher gear with her dance/pop hits such as ‘Moving on Up’, ‘One Night in Heaven’, ‘Sight for Sore Eyes’ and ‘Search for the Hero’.

Midge Ure took to the stage, and he could do no wrong, with hits such as ‘If I Was’ and ‘Fade to Grey’, ‘Vienna’ and ‘Dancing with Tears in My eyes”, all showcasing what an incredible song writer and musician Midge Ure is.

Squeeze were left to close the weekend of epic 80’s tunes, personally I have never been a big fan of Squeeze, but looking around the arena I must have been in a minority as the Rewinders were singing their hearts out to the music from Squeeze. It certainly appeared that Squeeze were a good choice to close the festival, just not my cup of tea so to speak.

In summary Rewind Festival North, is possibly the most enjoyable festival dedicated to mostly 80s music. They have clearly spent time on embedding a friendly, easy-going atmosphere. All of the staff (security, car park stewards, etc) all appeared to want to be there and actually help Rewinders have a good time. In short, a safe, feel-good festival with an incredible line up. I would go as far to say it is possibly the dream line up for anyone who is a fan of music from the 80s.

The only disappointment is that we now have to wait another year for Rewind Festival North to return...

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