Mucky Weekender took place on Friday 8th and Saturday 9th September on a beautiful site just a few miles away from the bustling city of Winchester and the weather forecast was good, possibly too good. Usually, given the choice of rain or sunshine, I would naturally opt for the latter but when the sunshine brings 32 degrees of Celsius with it, maybe a bit of the wet stuff would have been nice to take the edge off!

we arrived on Saturday afternoon owing to other commitments and knew that we'd missed a few highlights of the weekend including Don Letts, Bez and DJ Goldie who I heard played a blinding set as the revellers tucked into their food around teatime. After getting tagged up with wristbands and passes, we were set free to explore all that the festival had to offer.

The layout of the site remained unchanged from last year with the main tent (The Ashworth) situated near the spaceship (U.S.S Seanie T) and food vendors. Walking towards the campsite area, you were greeted by the slightly smaller dance tent (Crazy Diamonds Club Stage) and towards the top of the site, The Shack was nestled within a clutch of trees which served as a nice sheltered area that people could shelter from the rather warm rays.

Not long after we'd arrived, I was asked if I'd like to chat to General Levy who was to take the stage shortly afterwards, we did a great video interview which culminated in him giving me a 20 second freestyle rap in his unique style. later, we met Pauline Black from The Selecter who was as wonderful as ever, posing for photos and chatting to anyone wanted to get some face time with her.

As the afternoon turned into evening, Superstar DJ in the making Woody Cook arrived after a rather arduous trek from Ibiza where he had played a set the night before and after a lengthy airport delay and a train journey which allowed him just a couple of hours of sleep, he was onsite, charged and ready to perform. we had a great chat with Woody and explained that owing to people going hard on Friday, his set should be adjusted to a more mellow and laid back affair, he looked surprised before a massive smile broke out on his face when he added that won't be happening!

We also bumped into DJ Rap ahead of her set at 1am and I mentioned that I love her TikTok channel where she asks people where they were when a track was released, this seems to be really popular and I am thinking of stealing this concept for my own page!

I spent an hour running around the site asking space travellers (the theme was ‘Out of this World’) to take part in my 3 question interviews (name, where they came from and what they loved about Mucky Weekender), this proved popular and it wasn't long until I was changing the battery on my camera. 

Once the videos were done, we shuffled into the main tent to watch The Selecter at work, Pauline Black orchestrated the crowd with a variety of songs from their back catalogue including a few that encouraged audience participation, the excitable masses were only too happy to get involved. Hearing the newer songs was a delight but it was the timeless sound of 'Too Much Pressure' and 'On My Radio' which turned up the heat with everyone skanking away like there was no tomorrow.

Dub Pistols took to the main stage once Pauline and her band had cleared away, guitarist Jean-Claude King kicking off proceedings before Barry and Seanie T (aka The Seantrooper) leapt on stage and performed their usual double act whilst the audience lapped up every single minute of it.

Armed with a coach load of special guests including Rodney P, Ragga Twins and Natty Campbell, their near two hour set drifted by as smooth as a UFO and before you knew it, they were performing their trademark ‘Mucky Weekend’ track which went down a storm with the capacity crowd. I also wanted to note their version of ‘Gangstas’ after a heartfelt speech from Barry about the late Terry Hall who was an early patron of the Tonic Music for Mental Health charity, something that Barry was more than happy to sign up to and remains a patron to this day.

 

After Dub Pistols and company had cleared off the main stage, we wandered up to the U.S.S. Seanie T where Woody Cook had just launched into his set. from the ground, you could see him inside the DJ booth, jumping around like Zebedee from the magic roundabout as he flicked from one track to the next every 30 or so seconds, throwing in the odd sample and mixing tracks like he's been doing it for years! He said backstage that he'd be playing an eclectic mix and he was right....have you ever heard The White Stripes 'Seven Nation Army' mixed with Public Enemy's 'Bring the Noise'? nor had I, but it worked so well!

Woody effortlessly smashed down barriers merging multiple genres throughout his set which comprised of pop, dance, disco, rap, hip hop, funk and rock, something tells me this lad is gonna go a long way, if only I knew where he gets his skills from?!

At 11:45pm, I hot footed it over to The Shack where I caught the last 15 mins of Leeroy Thornhill’s electrifying DJ set. As I was fighting my way through the crowds, he dropped ‘Firestarter’ which did me no favours at all in getting to the front to do my video thing. I finally arrived and it was WILD and I mean WILD, people were surrounding the DJ booth and getting involved, the light show was epic and it was great to see so many people really enjoying themselves on the final night of Mucky Weekender.

I popped in to see DJ Rap ahead of her 1am set on the Crazy Diamonds Club stage, she wasn’t there but I did catch up with her manager who said that she was really up for the show and judging by the amount of people that had crammed into the tent, it was going to be proper mucky!

As the early hours of Sunday morning wore on, my legs were telling me it was time for a sit down so we went to see which food stalls were open, being so late, some had closed for the night though we managed to get a killer burger and portion of loaded fries from one stall, its staff were friendly and happy to serve us, even after a day that peaked at 33 degrees…. We sat eating whilst the tones of DJ Rap eminated from the Crazy Diamond stage into the main area.

We may have only been onsite less than 12 hours but I can honestly say that the festival is a MUST for fans of DJ’s and lively music acts, I think the festival must have a no under 18’s policy in place as there were no kids around but having spoken to a bunch of yoofs (well, they were younger than me!) earlier in the day, they were having a great time basking in the sunshine and enjoying the sheer variety of acts on offer across the four stages. Will we return next year? hell yes, and I feel that it’ll be even better than this year with more acts to keep everyone entertained, if you missed it this year, make sure that you get tickets for the 2024 event which I am sure will be on sale very soon!

A massive thanks and a HUGE well done to Biff and his team, Barry and his people for the idea in the first place, the DJ’s and bands for performing and most importantly, YOU lovely people for getting tickets, coming along and making it a superb weekend!

Until next year space cadets……