It’s always a long wait, but don’t worry everyone it’s coming! We’re just over a month away from the finest weekend of the summer, where the cream of the international indie-pop scene gather at a heritage railway museum, watch cans get crushed by steam rollers, and for one weekend forget about the world outside and embrace the bubble. We’re of course talking about Derbyshire’s finest festival, Indietracks.
Headlining this year are something of a best-of-British trio, with Halifax’s The Orielles bringing their eclectic musical-all-sorts, Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell, returning with her new project Tracyanne & Danny, and London trio Kero Kero Bonito showcasing their eclectic electro-pop universe. Other big hitters on the line-up include legendarily noisy Scots Bis, 6-Music’s favourite Liverpudlian Stealing Sheep and Durham pop-punkers Martha, while festival regulars, The Spook School, promise to gets the tears flowing with their bound-to-be emotional farewell (to Indietracks at least) show.
The real joy with Indietracks though is always to be found in discovering something new, and there’s an array of glistening gems further down the bill. We could pick, ten or twenty bands we’re looking forward to seeing (and nearer the time we might just do that!) but for now wrap your ears around the likes of Cardiff bedroom-pop perfection Rosehip Teahouse, Cornish dream-poppers L I P S and Cheerbleederz, the wonderfully noisy supergroup featuring members of Happy Accidents and Fresh.
Today the Andy, Nat and Emma from the Indietracks team pick out some of their favourite Indietracks memories featuring the likes of Camera Obscura, Sacred Paws and The Tuts.
1. Allo Darlin’ – The Polaroid Song (2014)
It was wonderful to see Allo Darlin’ go from playing our train stage acoustically one afternoon in 2008 to become fantastic headliners in 2014 – releasing three incredible albums along the way before disappearing all too soon. I think this 2014 set was the time they merged this song together with a note-perfect performance of Walk Like An Egyptian, which was an added bonus!
2. The Go! Team – Apollo Throwdown (2015)
I think this was the last song they played as an encore in 2015, at the end of an epic, uplifting set. Everyone was wearing glow sticks, and straight afterwards Ninja from the band joined literally every group of people at the disco in dancing along to Le Tigre. I think 2015 was an amazing year all around, and The Pains of Being Pure At Heart were on blistering form the night before too.
3. La Casa Azul – Love is in the air (2009)
This was the first year we had the big outdoor stage, and we had some amazing names – Teenage Fanclub, Camera Obscura, Emmy The Great, Art Brut, Au Revoir Simone. And among all this, La Casa Azul headlined on the Saturday night and blew everyone away – a one man show with fantastic tunes, excellent visuals and peaking with this soaring cover.
4. Haiku Salut – Train Tracks for Wheezy (2013)
We can’t always make it to the Church Stage sets, as we need to be organising things, and often just hear about the really good things afterwards – The Specific Heats, The Just Joans, Lilith Ai, Stars of Aviation, The Middle Ones and Steven James Adams often get mentioned. However, we did sneak into the Haiku Salut lampshow in 2013, which was really special, even if it did mean missing The Pastels outside.
5. The Tuts – Do I have to look for love? (2017)
They’ve played at Indietracks a few times now, and I think the highlight was headlining our indoor stage in 2017, wearing wedding dresses, speaking openly about mental health, decorating the stage with balloons and appearing to have the time of their lives! And then afterwards, Cate Le Bon played a mesmerising and equally amazing set outdoors to close the festival.
6. Withered Hand – Heart Heart (2014)
They played an electric indoor stage set in 2014 and we can’t to welcome them back this year. We love how punky and super catchy this song is!
7. Camera Obscura – Lloyd, I’m Ready to be Heartbroken (2009)
Camera Obscura played in 2009 and 2013, and obviously Tracyanne and Danny will be playing for us this year. This song has been a disco favourite at Indietracks since 2007, so we had to include it really! Both Camera Obscura sets for us were absolutely breathtaking and they’ll always have a special place in our hearts.
8. Hidden Cameras – Breathe on It (2011)
They played some really beautiful acoustic songs on the outdoor stage in the afternoon before tearing the roof off the indoor stage later that night. There was co-ordinated audience dancing, and some amazing cello action too!
9. Sacred Paws – Strike a Match (2018)
Friday nights are always really exciting because it’s the first time we hear the train whistle and get to meet up with everyone we haven’t seen for a year! Last year Sacred Paws really caught the mood of the first night of the festival and got everyone dancing!
10. Kero Kero Bonito – Trampoline (2019)
We’re so excited with about all our headliners this year, including KKB, The Orielles, Tracyanne and Danny, Stealing Sheep, Martha and loads of others. We could have chosen an amazing song from any of those, and have picked this one mostly because we’re really looking forward to seeing everyone bouncing around madly as the trains go past! (Assuming KKB play it of course – no pressure!)
Indietracks takes place July 26th-28th at the Midland Railway Centre, near Ripley in Derbyshire. Tickets are available now from £79 + booking fee. Click HERE for more information.
For The Rabbits 