As I’ve mentioned before, Neighbourhood Weekender is usually one of the highlights of my year.
The line-ups usually align quite well with my musical tastes, it’s not too far from home and the weather is usually pretty flawless (spoiler – only two of those three things remained the case this year).
Most of the artists I’d picked out to watch this time around were smaller ones, who I like a few tunes of but who haven’t necessarily convinced me to buy a ticket for one of their own gigs yet.
Saturday: A mixed bag
The weekend started with Manchester-formed band Picture Parlour, who were opening the Big Top, two years out from a performance on the Viola Beach Stage at the same festival. NME threw its weight behind the four-piece’s debut single ‘Norwegian Wood’ and any suggestions of nepotism seem lazy in the extreme – it’s just a bloody good song.
That being said, despite having a great look, some big riffs, and lead singer Katherine Parlour’s unique vocal delivery, something just doesn’t connect with me. It’s certainly not through a lack of confidence and Parlour channels Alex Turner at times, both in the way she swaggers around the stage and in some of her vocal runs. Perhaps it was just playing to a sparsely populated tent at 12.35 in the afternoon but I left feeling as if I’d wanted slightly more from them.
As I inhaled some jerk chicken, fries and plantain from Caribbean food stall JRK Bros (7/10), I could hear local band The Bemonts open the Viola Beach Stage, after a relentless social media campaign led to them getting booked last year. They pulled a decent crowd to be fair and it sounded like they were having a great time, so fair play to them.
I discovered The Royston Club at Neighbourhood 2023, with them playing The Big Top pretty early in the day. They’ve now graduated to the main stage and it was great to see them pull a much larger crowd.
This was the fifth time I’ve seen them and they just continue to get better and better. They managed to squeeze quite a bit into their half-hour set, with second album tracks ‘The Patch Where Nothing Grows’ and ‘Shivers’ being greeted like old favourites. Once again, I was left wanting more, albeit in a much more positive sense (I think their show at Manchester Academy in October is going to have to be gig number six).
One of the bands I’ve been really excited to see is Arkayla and they definitely delivered during a 25-minute set full of catchy indie tunes on the Viola Beach Stage. It was just a bit of a shame that due to the positioning of the stage, the sound from the main stage sometimes bleeds into that area, which made it quite difficult to hear the band talking between songs.
Aside from the three main stages, another highlight is always The Neighbourhood Inn, which was previously an inflatable pub but is now a tent. It was also one of the only places at the festival that poured pints, with most of the bars serving 500ml cans at £6.80 a pop. The tent was absolutely rammed for Rockaoke which consists of festivalgoers belting out a song alongside a full band. It was great fun and a bit of a reprieve from the weather, which had already started to take a turn for the worse.
As the rest of Saturday carried on and as I chowed down on a delicious but eye-wateringly expensive brisket burger from The Tipsy Texan (9/10) it dawned on me that I probably should have just bought a day ticket for the Sunday, with that day’s line-up being much more to my tastes.
However, you can always rely on The Wombats (who I was watching for the second time in the space of three months) putting on a great festival set and they did just that. Having seen James before and with no interest in Big Top headliners The Reytons (sorry Reytons fans) we decided to call Saturday a day there and trudge back to the train station before the mad rush.
Sunday: Much more like it (apart from the weather)
Sunday was a much more exciting prospect and the sunshine was well and truly out when we arrived just before 3pm, in time for a quick meat paella from Senor Paella (8.5/10) followed by Irish folk/punk group The Mary Wallopers.
After hearing great things, it was my first time seeing them live and they are just a proper festival band – loads of people were up Irish jigging and the banter between songs brought plenty of laughs. I had to leave before the end of their set to watch one of my must-sees of the weekend in Chloe Slater.
At just 22, Chloe has already been on the cover of NME and had features in Rolling Stone UK, so it seems a safe bet that she has a really exciting future ahead of her. Her politically-charged alt-pop songs take aim at targets including influencer culture, technology, and landlords, tearing all of them down with very pointed lyrics, over explosive guitar riffs and punchy drum beats.
To her credit, she seems incredibly down-to-earth for someone so talented and she looked genuinely thrilled when she heard people singing her lyrics back at her. I think next time she’s invited back to the festival, it will be a bigger stage.
She was followed by Sunday (1994) who I had seen just two nights earlier in Liverpool. Some of the Transatlantic trio’s lyrics are quite biblical so it seemed fitting that the heavens opened at this point of the afternoon. Lead singer Paige Turner appeared to be annoyed by something as she took to the Viola Beach Stage and she later admitted that she wasn’t happy about having to use a wired microphone. I don’t think the California native was particularly impressed by the Great British weather either, which is probably a far cry from what she’s used to.
Despite all this, they still managed to pull off another really solid set, which perhaps naturally didn’t quite live up to the lofty heights set by their solo gig a couple of evenings prior.
The sun briefly returned and then it started to absolutely pelt it down with rain and hailstone. I ran to one of the poncho sellers but it was completely in vain as I was soaked to the bone by the time I got to the front of the queue, with it managing to completely drench my T-shirt THROUGH my zipped up rain jacket (thanks a lot Pretty Green). It also led to the most fitting lyrics of the afternoon, as I heard Inhaler frontman Elijah Hewson singing in the distance: “what’s it gonna take for this storm to break?”
Also shout out to Scottish singer/songwriter Kerr Mercer on the Viola Beach Stage, who actually stopped in the middle of his set to tell those watching him that he wouldn’t blame them one bit if they left to try and find some space in either the Big Top of the Neighbourhood Inn.
I’ve never really got on the Wunderhorse hype train but (heeding Mercer’s advice) it did seem the most sensible option to head to the Big Top to shelter from the rain for a bit and try and catch a bit of the band’s set. What I did see was actually really bloody good. Seeing the songs live with Jacob Slater’s energy elevates them to a new level and it actually got me hoping that they don’t clash with anyone at Glastonbury.
Thankfully the rain relented a little bit by the time that Luvcat took to the Viola Beach stage and also allowed me to grab some delightful butter chicken and rice from Sanjha on the Go on the way (8/10).
I had previously seen singer Sophie Morgan support fellow Scouser Zuzu back in 2021 and her music was acoustic and folky, with honey sweet vocals. Luvcat is a different beast completely, with a much moodier and sultry style. You feel that this new direction is what’s going to lead to her big break though with murder ballad ‘He’s My Man’ already racking up more than 13 million listens on Spotify.
Both Morgan and her Beatles-looking backing band looked incredibly at home on the stage, even if the time constraints meant that she had to cut a song (presumably February release ‘Love & Money’) from the set.
But it was another female musician who ended up stealing the whole weekend.
CMAT steals the show
CMAT’s stock has risen massively since her first time at Neighbourhood back in 2023. She was nominated for International Artist of the Year at the 2024 BRIT Awards and her sophomore album ‘Crazymad, For Me’ was nominated for both the Mercury Prize and an Ivor Novello.
Her newest single ‘Take a Sexy Picture of Me’ has quickly become perhaps her best known song after it became a TikTok dance trend, and to top it off she’s rumoured to be performing on the iconic Pyramid Stage at this year’s Glastonbury.
So when she took to the Big Top for an hour-long set on Sunday evening, it was packed much more tightly than it was when she performed a short 25 minute slot just two years ago.
It’s fair to say that CMAT is bonkers and at that 2023 set, I felt that she spent too much time messing about rather than singing but the longer set time here allowed for that trademark silliness, without taking anything away from the performance.
Her vocals are always incredible and she seems to have a brilliant knack of turning sceptics (or just people who are trying to secure a good spot for the next act) into fully fledged fans. If you’re going to a CMAT gig, you cannot take yourself too seriously and you really do have to let yourself get swept up in the chaos of it all. If you do, you’ll be rewarded with a extremely captivating and enjoyable live experience.
As I was sober and driving, Dizzee Rascal in the Big Top didn’t massively appeal to me and I’m not a big enough fan of Stereophonics to brave another torrential downpour for them so CMAT’s brilliant set seemed like a perfect place to end things.
Once again, Neighbourhood was a very well organised event, with little to no bar queues, plenty of food vendors and great music. However, I do think that next year I will possibly have to wait until the stage splits come out before committing to a ticket as I just don’t think I ended up getting value for money on the Saturday in particular. Let’s hope for a return to glorious sunshine next year as well, eh?
Did you go to this year’s Neighbourhood Weekender? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments below.
Leave a Reply