06 July 2017 (gig)
17 July 2017
I’ve found my new favourite festival.
Set in the rolling hills of gorgeous Cheltenham, surrounded by Lavender farms and fields of wild flowers, is the most glorious alt-rock and hardcore festival I’ve had the pleasure of attending.
With such a lovely set up it’s hard to start to describe exactly what was so enjoyable about this small 5k capacity festival.
Often with the smaller, niche genre-d events you sometimes loose the hedonistic and endearing finesses you can expect with the larger mainstream weekends. 2000 Trees however somehow manages to perfectly cater to both a fantastically curated line-up, of established and emerging bands, alongside the amusing finishes and cute embellishments that make the time there so special.
Set across two and a half days, 2000 Trees is compromised of three medium sized stages featuring a packed line-up.
Larger acts like SLAVES, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, Young Guns, Jamie Lenman (Read: Reuben), Lower Than Atlantis, Deaf Havana and Mallory Knox dominate the weekend but aren’t confined to the evening sets.
These are perfectly peppered with the more niche stalwarts; The Wonder Years, Dinosaur Pile Up, Gnarwolves, Black Peaks, SHVPES, The Menzingers and Pulled Apart By Horses.
Then further punctuated with the best emerging talent the scene has to offer such as Rolo Tomassi, Milk Teeth, OathBraker, SŒUR. These smaller bands are made incredibly easy to discover on site by the ingenious “for fans of” break down on the back on the line-up lanyard. Every festival should take note of this feature as we discovered so many great bands we’d never have had the chance to see otherwise.
By far my favourite feature was the tiny acoustic stage set down a winding path in the woods. Here, everyone sits on the floor, between the trees, drinking beer in raptured silence as a multitude of the larger acts play gorgeous stripped down sets.
The bars are reasonably priced (as little as £3 for a local pint) and the food stalls offer good variety.
The arena is joined to the campsite, so you’re at liberty to bring your own drinks and food with you everywhere. It may sound a small thing, but can make a huge difference to your spending over the weekend and takes the stress out of sneaking that bottle of Jäger in.
The campsite itself is delightfully organised too. Split into three, there’s a Glasto feeling of comradery. We met a group in “Camp Reuben” who became friends after camping next to each other 5 years ago and reunite every year.
Within the campsites and in the bars, there are tiny stages for small acts to perform throughout the day and into the night so there’s always something to see.
Evening entertainment is a 4 way silent disco. I always find these big fun, but what was particularly nice was the varied station meaning everyone’s tastes were catered for.
There’s plenty of chill out spaces, toilets are great and its clearly family friendly from the number in attendance.
Its reasonably priced too at around £90 for a three-day ticket with many payment options such as “Buy now, Pay later”.
It’s hard to explain the good feeling there. The staff were super friendly. The sound-tech was brilliant on every stage and every effort to make it a great weekend had been made.
In short, I can’t recommend it enough. I fully intend on attending every year from here on out.
Photo Credit: Jessica Keogh IG: @jessicake0gh
