Rockaway Beach Festival

It's January, Christmas is done, most of us are back to work, holiday is over, it really is (as Pete Wylie will loudly sing this weekend) the Story of The Blues. Well it would be, if every year we didn't have Rockaway Beach festival to look forward to on the very first weekend of the new year!

It's the tenth year of Rockaway Beach festival, Music News have been fortunate to attend most of them, and they just keep getting better. For a lot of people a music festival in the first week of January is not even on the radar, but, stick it in a holiday camp, include accommodation in the (very reasonable) ticket price and a load of great bands, old and new, and it really does become a no-brainer. My one gripe over the years has been that Butlins haven't really catered for the Real/Craft Ale drinker, but this year they have pulled it out of the bag and added a few pop up bars to appease even the grumpiest of old men...

There is a loyal crowd, many of whom return year after year, knowing the quality of the event is always at such a high level that many tickets sell before any hint of the line-up. What we get is a mixture of established acts, new bands, DJ sets, live artist interviews and Q&As, and of course access to the wave pool, waterslides, amusement arcades, go-karts, and every other bit of entertainment that Butlins can stuff up a Redcoat's sleeve.

Friday this year we got here in time for Holiday Ghosts, who are a great start to the festival for us. These guys, who hail from Cornwall and Brighton have got a seemingly endless supply of catchy garage surf rock hooks and instantly likeable tunes that the whole crowd here gets quickly engrossed in. Songs like Total Crisis, Walk for Hours and their infamous hateful tribute of their (particularly sub-standard) old landlord Mr Herandi are a joy to witness. Lead vocals are shared between guitarists Sam and Ben and Katja on Drums, making the whole Holiday Ghosts sound varied, fresh and , just, well, really really good!

Pete Wylie and the Mighty Wah, it seems like Pete has gathered a bunch of young musicians together for his latest incarnation of the Wah. I'm familiar with a few of his songs from back in the day and have been looking forward to checking them out. Pete, is a force of nature. He likes a bit (well, ok, a lot) of banter between songs and when he does sing his voice is so high in the mix, he almost drowns his (very accomplished) band out. It's good to hear a couple of 80's classics, The Story of the Blues and Sinful. The crowd seems to be split between Wah lovers and the bemused.

Rockaway veterans will be familiar with the way it works here in terms of live music. Bands earlier in the day have always been in Reds Bar and the 2 or 3 evening acts in the larger Centre Stage. This year there's a new venue! Reds has been left to the DJs in the evenings. Centre Stage takes the majority of daytime bands and a post headline slot, and the bigger acts now get the shiny new Studio 36. The conference and events space looks enormous. The simple set up is perfect for gigs and the sound is fantastic in there. Our first experience being Spiritualized who fill the awesome new venue with trippy psychedelia and majestic soundscapes. Backed by a trio of gospel backing singers, who make the wall of sound beautiful and complete, we get a mix of out and out rock 'n' roll in set openers Hey Jane and She Kissed Me (It Felt Like A Hit) mixed with the more traditional Spritualized melancholy of So Long You Pretty Thing and Damaged. Surprisingly we get nothing from Floating In Space, in fact most of the set is from the most recent 2 albums, but no matter, the quality is self evident tonight. Favourites were Always Together With You and the gorgeous Shine A Light from their 1992 debut Lazer Guided Melodies.

Isle of Wight trio, The Pill bring a dose of zesty energy to proceedings on Saturday. Lottie and Lily on guitar, bass and vocals are backed by Rufus on drums. They hit us with a slay of 3 minute raucously loud and frenetic and chaotic punk numbers filled with sarcasm, wit and originality. They will be hard to beat today.

Today's line up is typically diverse and CLT DRP's electro punk gives us something a bit different with Annie Dorrett's amazing vocals being the centrepiece of the Brighton Trio's enthralling performance.

Meryl Streek's angry rantings are followed by the contrastingly dreamy vocals and complex soundscapes of EBBB which if you close your eyes can just take you to another plane altogether. Songs like Crying in the Carwash and Like Hell really have the crowd bouncing for ARXXs frenetic set, and The Ruts DC set the Centre stage on fire with a rousing performance of Ruts classics, including Staring at the Rude Boys, and of course, Babylon's Burning.

It's almost as if the new venue was built for Leftfield. The 90's electronic masters have this place completely bouncing for almost 2 hours tonight. The sound in here is fantastic. The live drums and percussion brings a more real aspect to the performance compared to decks and sequencers that may be the limit of other live electronic acts. It's the 12 minute epic finisher Phat Planet that has everyone losing themselves in either a dance or a trance.

Back to Centre Stage for the visitors from New York, Bodega. I didn't know a lot about these guys, I've heard the odd track, but they have somehow pretty much passed me by, however, I think I may have found my new favourite band (which is what Rockaway is all about). I was always a huge fan of Pavement, clearly an influence here, but there is a lot more to the Bodega sound. Ben's cool vocals and guitar are in great contrast to Nicki's shouts and yelps and bashing the shit out of a single cymbal centre stage. Their music is eclectic, inventive, current, retro, complex and fun all at the same time. An epic 10 minute relaxed, extended Tarkovski sits happily alongside a trio of "New York hardcore" tracks. An hour and a half sees them play almost 25 tracks tonight, every one offering something a little different. They ask for requests at the end, and Shiny New Model and Jack in Titanic are the pick of these. These guys are clearly prolific, and rumour has it are about to record another album. Go and see them.

Jaws the Shark bit through a few people's Saturday night hangovers with some Grunge tinged belters on Sunday Morning. Closely followed by a bit of goth post punk from Bloodworm who's live sound is superb here. The three piece fill the stage with sounds reminiscent of early Cure and The Mission to name but a couple. Moody vocals and tight playing really impressed this crowd. Certainly ones to watch.

The Jonny Halifax Invocation, we're not really sure what hit us, but it was different! There was a guy on Sax, another on slide guitar, people wondering around the stage shaking maracas, free form jazz, blues, psychedelia are all words you could throw at them, but judge for yourself, give them a listen, and if you want to see something out of the ordinary, check them out live, words don't do them justice.

I'm stood by bass bins when The Itch come on, and after a few tracks I can feel my whole body shaking. This exciting electronic act have the bass, the tunes and a shitload of energy, I'd like to not mention Depeche Mode as an influence, but there it is, but it's not a bad thing. These guys surely have a great future.

Sprints have it all, the big riffs, the attitude, a bit of chaos and of course, the craic! They rock the shit out of this massive venue tonight. We get a large chunk of the hugely impressive debut album Letter to Self, a highlight for me being the mesmerising Shadow of a Doubt. Karla keeps the crowd amused with some friendly banter and apologises for missing the Q&A scheduled, for earlier in the day, to make up for it she offers to play us a few brand new songs. "Better" was the highlight of these, a song that built and built to a huge crescendo. These guys are here to stay, and it's exciting!

Ride, what a headliner. This band took a young me by the throat in the early 90's and I still Listen to their classic debut album Nowhere regularly to this day. They split for a long time but have done a few albums since they re-formed in 2014, the most recent of which Interplay they lean heavily on tonight, showing the quality and strength of the material. Monaco and Portland Rocks kick off a spellbinding set, but it's when Loz's drums bang out the first few unmistakeable strains of Dreams Burn Down that the music takes me off to another plane of existence altogether. Mark and Andy's vocals and effects driven guitars are just mesmerising. Vapour Trail is a thing of pure beaty, and Seagull (got to be up there as one of the best album openers ever) is completely captivating. This venue was made for bands like Ride to fill with a wall of sound and tonight they do so perfectly. Leave Them all Behind is the highlight of the encore, which ends with the brilliant Chelsea Girl.

The bar has been set impossibly high for 2026, Rockaway, bring it on!