Taking the festival up a gear
The Levellers headlined day 1 of Guilfest, just one of a whole series of festival dates as they mark twenty years as a band. Already with Glastonbury under their belts, and with the Cambridge Folk Festival and their own, sold out, Beautiful Days event still to come, they’re a band firmly in the festival groove.
The area in front of what this year was called The Commercial Radio Stage had been a long way off being considered busy during the early part of the evening, but the masses were out in force to see one of Britain’s great feel-good live acts.
Given that this was a festival headline slot the setlist didn’t have as many of the successful singles as you might expect, and was very much geared towards the Levs fans rather than entertaining those who came along for a casual look. That said, with Friday only being for a few hours bands can get away with this more than elsewhere.
‘Beautiful Day’ and ‘One Way’ naturally went down well, the latter is an anthem to be reckoned with. ‘Men and Tol’ which closes the ‘Zeitgeist’ album always stands out as a set highpoint.
The Levellers certainly know how to liven up a party, and they followed on from Supergrass last year in getting Guilfest off to a fine start.
The band have new material on the way in the form of ‘Letters From the Underground’, out on August 11, with a single ‘Before The End’ which is released on July 28.