The Beat Goes On At Nibley

BritEvents' Amanda Arnold reviews the Nibley Festival, a non-profit and family-friendly event set in the heart of the beautiful Cotswolds in Gloucestershire.

The beat goes on at Nibley

By Amanda Arnold, BritEvents.com

This family friendly festival is run entirely by volunteers and is set in the heart of the stunning Cotswolds in Gloucestershire.

A day of sunshine was ordered and that is exactly what we received, wall to wall sunshine and a very warm evening helped with the friendly party atmosphere.

I first heard of Nibley on the social media site Twitter.com and from the very start you could tell that they were a friendly bunch of people and enjoyed organising this non-profit festival.

This is the first music festival I have taken my children to and they enjoyed the food, the fantastic line up of live music and meeting some of the bands.

One of these bands was the very talented Last Casanovas. After their set they sat next to us enjoying the rest of the festival themselves. My daughter told them she thought they sounded a bit like Pearl Jam, they told her she was cool! You can just imagine the look on her face being told by a band "You are cool" at the tender age of 14. Feeling very flattered she came home and went straight on Facebook to find them!

This young and talented band were, in the opinion of my family, one of the memorable bands of the day. Last Casanovas certainly take after their namesake as their front man Sam, who was very slightly the worse for wear, told me he writes as well as sings the songs. I was amazed when they told me they hadn't rehearsed much as their performance appeared polished and well structured.

It is very obvious by the way Sam sings his songs that he also writes them. Sam told me that, like all the best writers, he uses his own personal experiences to write the bands songs. For such a young person it is hard to imagine that he has that many experiences to draw upon to be able to write such meaningful and haunting lyrics. Watch out for this band, they are hot!

My son, who is just 11, had the Nibley festival programme signed by N.U.M.B, who have many famous fans including Prince Harry and Rik Wakeman.They are an Urban Soul band with intelligent and well performed rap. N.U.M.B, which stands for Never Underestimate Musical Belief, have recently played at the O2 Wireless festival at Hyde Park, Glastonbury and Windsor Castle whilst they were also finalists in O2 Undiscovered and Global battle Of The bands. This is another up and coming band for whom Ben, my son, said he is keeping the autographed programme for when they are really famous!

Another powerful young band, who appeared just before the headlining The Beat, were Kill It Kid. I had heard of this band before and I was really looking forward to seeing them perform. Their music is very powerful and is a clear cross between rock and blues, reminiscent of White Stripes and Kings of Leon but still distinctive in its own right.

The lead singer Chris Turpin, who has a most amazing voice well beyond his years, gives this band the edge and they definitely didn't disappoint the festival fans. The power and talent behind this band will take them a long way, they were brilliant to watch live, and their music was intense to the point of taking my breath away!

This is not a write-up about all of the bands that appeared at Nibley but I felt I had to mention these three bands in particular as they stood out amongst the other very talented bands at the festival. It goes to show you that you don't have to be squashed between another 50,000 festival goers and pay those extortionate festival prices to have a great time and experience good live music.

Nibley festival was one of the best days we have had as a family. It was relaxing, safe, definitely not over priced, the food was wonderful and the local beer was deliciously strong and went down a treat! I loved the contrast of being at an event that was half village fete and half rock festival - it certainly made for a unique environment where everyone seemed to be having a great time.

There was loads to do during the day to keep the younger children entertained. I especially liked the scarf printing, 3 to design, print and keep shows that people will pay for something like that without feeling that they are being ripped off!

Now, I just have to mention the toilets, you can not go to a festival and not mention the toilets. I won't go into detail but I have had a phobia of portaloos ever since I went to one of the first V festivals - 'nuff said. Nibley had loads of toilets, more than enough to cater for the 3,500 people. I hardly had to queue and they were kept spotless! Well done Nibley you may well have cured me!

I will definitely go to next year's Nibley Festival as the chance to see so many talented, new, up and coming bands live is just too good to miss. Whilst festival fever seems to be somewhat on the wane at the moment, with some of the biggest failing to sell out, Nibley has grown year on year and looks set to continue in that vein. The festival is affordable, friendly and most importantly the music was awesome.

A final word for the headlining act The Beat. They were a band of my youth but, I have to confess, they were never one of my favourites. However, I can't praise their performance enough - they were simply brilliant. Full of energy and vitality they banged out hit after hit without losing tempo and their sense of enjoyment at performing. All their famous tracks were played - Mirror in the Bathroom, Hands Off She's Mine and Can't Get Used to Losing You all had the crowd up on their feet, dancing and shouting out the lyrics. Their set lasted well over a year and included a couple of encores enthusiastically called for by the audience. Whoever headlines the festival next year has some act to follow and whoever it is I'll be there to see them.

The pictures included in this review were kindly given to us by David Nute from The Big Ideas Business. To find out more go to his website www.getthebigidea.co.uk. It was nice to meet Dave after tweeting in the lead up to the festival - he was just one of the friendly folk at Nibley that day.