Anna Hyams

Leicestershire, home to pork pies, foxes, and southern American charm since 2018 – yes, we are returning once again to the fields of Stanford Hall for The Long Road festival, a cornucopia of country music and Americana in the heart of England.

Walking into the site we can already see the fruits of this festival’s continued growth, with much extended campervan fields and a plethora of extra camping, and we can smell the morning breakfasts being cooked in the Friday sunshine. I am particularly invested in how fancy everyone’s set-up is, having walked past a gazebo with a full kitchen set up including hanging pots and pans, and a sink area. Roadies come PREPARED.

The festival arena itself remains mostly unchanged (bar the addition of a new stage which we will investigate later) but there are some notable omissions from this year’s line-up of extras, like Solo Stove whose gorgeous firepits (and late night s’mores) I will definitely lament later. I was also hoping for the return of the Harley Davidson shop, but I do think the inclusion of the Hat Bar where you can buy and DIY your cowboy hat with various trinkets and branding, is pretty darn cool.

Anyway, off we go!

FRIDAY

One big upgrade for this year’s festival is that the main stage opens tonight, giving Roadies a whole extra evening of musical action to look forward to – where in previous years the Interstate stage bore the Friday entertainment mostly on it’s own. I do think immediately setting up your chair and plonking yourself down at the Rhinestone is a bit nutty for 11am though… *side eye*.

Heading out into the back of the site, we decide to check out The Hitching Post, Long Road’s newest addition, which is a stunning peaked tent stage filled with tinsel and disco vibes. I love the fact that the side wings provide a heap of seating undercover, and that the wooden floor makes for the ideal dancing space – perfect for the weekend’s line/square/barn dancing schedule.

The area surrounding this new stage is also home to a lot of exciting food offerings, and a plethora of picnic tables – if there’s one thing this festival just does exceptionally well, it is making sure you’ve always got somewhere to sit and eat. I choose pulled spicy pulled chicken tacos which are a taste sensation but structurally the worst I’ve ever tried to eat. Delicious and frustrating in equal measure.

From there we pop over to Lil Possum County, a hay-baled area set up for kids activities, where a possibly deadly, definitely chaotic, game of dodgeball is being waged. We opt instead for a quick game of Cornhole, before heading to the Weber Grill area to investigate a very delicious smell…

The thing is, even if you have just eaten Tacos… you could always eat more Tacos… and the Tacos being made here smell phenomenal. Weber is running cooking classes and competitions all weekend, but you’ve gotta be quick to get a tasting token. Next door, Ariat are already doing a roaring trade in boots and tees – along with London Shoeshine who are there to giddy up your kicks (and you can even get them branded if you want!).

We head back over towards the main stage area, to the High Falootin’ VIP to case the joint. Having spotted some nice comfy sofas around the mini tent stage there, we sit down in the sunshine where Katie Rigby is singing about how she’s pretty sure she was born in the wrong place (a Brit into country music) with ‘Past Life Cowgirl’ – her viral tiktok hit. Katie has an incredible voice, I really hope to see her here again, hopefully on a bigger stage.

First up on the Rhinestone stage is Liam St. John, bringing a wakeup dose of energy to a sleepy Friday evening. Bopping about in a wifebeater tank with a Crybaby haircut, you might not expect the truly brilliant Britney Spears ‘Toxic’ cover, but you should be super sad if you missed it. It’s a great set overall, and Liam is funny and charming (especially when he manages to say Leicestershire correctly, we stan a man who practices our silly words). A quick trip around to The Front Porch stage takes us to Oscar Blue, singing gorgeous soft melodies in the evening sun, then Ashley Monroe lights up the Rhinestone in a black fringe party dress to deliver her soulful songs.

There’s no rest for the wicked as we take ourselves back to the furthest corner of the festival to grab some dinner (Cajun shrimp from the Bayou truck, my annual favourite haunt) and then head into the Interstate tent for Fantastic Negrito.

Fantastic Negrito (aka Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz) is one of the coolest cats I’ve ever laid eyes on. Unfortunately beset by sound issues, the frustrated band is yelling at techs to turn various things up and down, while Xavier bounces around nervously and tells us he feels awkward. Luckily after around ten minutes it does get solved and they launch into a blues laced set of wall-to-wall delight. Guitarist Clark Sims absolutely wails, Bryan Simmons on the keys is just so full of life and fun, and Fantastic himself is pure unadulterated joy in stripy socks. It is instantly one of my favourite sets of the weekend, I have been genuinely lost in their music and will probably binge every Spotify song whilst writing this up.

Friday’s Rhinestone headliner Drake Milligan has brought a very imposing stage backdrop emblazoned with his name in giant red letters, to match his postbox red shirt and spangly red white and blue glittered guitar. What follows is a rip roaring, furiously fun romp through Drake’s upbeat country songs, to a huge arena crowd. We are 30k strong here this weekend, a big jump up from previous years and it is really noticeable in the roar of appreciation for Drake tonight.

“Y’all this is crazy, we have been all over the world these last few years… but I don’t think I’ve ever experienced something as cool as this in the UK right now. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a crowd this big sing this song before…”

The patriotic lighting dances across Drake as he yells “Everyone give me a YeeeeHaww!” and commands the gods to stick a drink in his open hand. ‘Bad Day To Be A Beer’ is undeniably cheesy as a song, and obviously I can’t help but love it. Between the band making a dance-train across the stage, a cheeky Elvis ‘Burning Love’ cover (a nod to Drake’s past life as an Elvis impersonator) and him popping down to the front row to shake hands with everyone, it’s clear he came to dominate this UK performance and is absolutely succeeding.

‘Slow Dancin’ (To A Fast Song)’ has the entire arena grooving along with Drake and his hips. As he puts it himself “If nothing else, shake it for the critters and the squirrels”. It’s a stellar start to the weekend’s festivities, and a great Friday nightcap.

SATURDAY

Kicking off Saturday with Aussie gal Fanny Lumsden’s set is just the tonic, she bounces about in gingham bloomers and treats us all to a fantastic cover of Gotye’s ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ which I do think I like better than the original, and a particularly poignant song she wrote about the bush fires in Australia – ‘Great Divide’. Following her set, Fanny came out to the side of the stage to host a meet & greet alongside selling some of her frankly brilliant merchandise. With a name like Fanny and an Australian sense of humour – well, it’s gotta be the best seller of the weekend.

A stroll through the woods to Buddy’s Good Time Bar is required to catch Ireland’s Janet Devlin (of X-factor fame) was a great choice. It’s a busy space with a lot of people crammed into the front of the tiny tent, all attempting to jig along to Janet’s upbeat set. Joking about her song ‘Emotional Rodeo’ Janet laughs “I’m diagnosed BPD you know, so I’m a fun time” before launching into it. I also giggled a lot at her admission that she makes men call her Daddy (after her song of the same name), and even has it tattooed inside her lip – what a queen.

Back on the Rhinestone, we catch Lancashire’s Jake O’Neill crooning ‘Gotta Go My Own Way’ and having a little confidence wobble “Woah. This is a lot of people. Not gonna lie… shitting myself a lil bit!”. No worries required there Jake, your voice is stunning and everyone is appreciative. I also love the fact that we are seeing lots of home-grown country artists this year.

Next up we rock up to The Showground to watch the annual Hot Dog Eating Competition, which is usually fairly uneventful as mostly people forget that bread is hard to digest and only manage four or five. Today though? A hero has come to call. The winner takes the wiener (trophy) with an astounding TEN hot dogs consumed this year, which is both amazing and a little grim. For less challenging entertainment we decide to pop over to Lil Possum County to watch a water gun fight, and try our hand (feet) at some barn dancing at The Hitching Post.

On the main stage Mackenzie Carpenter shows up looking like cowgirl Barbie personified in a black two piece, with matching black hat and boots – not gonna lie, I wish I was her. During song ‘Country Queen’ she finds a girl in the crowd to gift a hat to, in a Taylor Swift-esque moment, and it’s clear the crowd is ready to boogie along with her. Laughing, Mackenzie says “All my favourite country women have songs about murdering their husbands… This song is a song about someone who’s gone fishing and they ain’t coming back” and proceeds to play the very catchy and funny ‘Gone Fishing’.

A cover of Cyndi Lauper’s (Country) ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ is prefaced with “I just countrified it” to a huge crowd, Mackenzie has been such a highlight of this festival, and I am still kicking myself for not getting over to the merch shop for my own Country Queen hat.

Up next Larry Fleet gives a sweet performance of ‘Things I Take For Granted’ alongside his very fun band, including the aptly named bassist Crazy Legs who appears to mostly be made of elastic.

Taking another quick trip to The Showground for the Dog show, we are highly amused by the Dogstacle course, many hounds in bandanas, and one particular woofer whose ‘best trick’ is making things disappear… well, mainly food.

We also catch a little of the soaring vocals of Rissi Palmer at The Front Porch, under the gorgeous glowing festoon lights for the Colour Me Country takeover. Grabbing ourselves some pickleback shots and freebie pickles from the truck behind, we join the ranks of people taking a seat around the stage for a beautiful soft evening of soulful listening. Rissi absolutely commands the crowd, and every time I see her I am blown away by her voice – bring her back every year, I will never tire!

Tonight’s headliner hailing from Texas are Midland playing to the biggest main stage crowd I have ever seen at this festival, it really is a sight to behold in the gathering darkness of this late summer night.

Unfortunately the lighting design seems to be centred around the idea that we shouldn’t see their faces whatsoever at the beginning, and later on when we headed further back in the crowd, it did seem like the sound was extremely muted – despite other artists during the day not facing the same issues. Regardless, they roll through hits ‘Mr Lonely’ and ‘Longneck Way To Go’, but for my choice ‘Drinking Problem’ and their Mackenzie Carpenter guest appearance for ‘I Wish You Would’ are the stand out tracks tonight.

A lot of artists this weekend have commented on their view from the main stage over Stanford Hall itself, and Midland weigh in with “Is the Lord of the Manor in right now? I’m not used to this stuff… it’s pretty intimidating playing in front of a house like that. Tell you what I’d never invite you guys to party on my lawn man, all fifteen thousand of you?!” garnering a lot of giggles from the crowd.

As they move on to Brooks & Dunn cover ‘Boot Scootin Boogie’ they issue a warning that they’re heading into livelier territory “It’s a sexy song, are there kids here? Make sure that kid has earmuffs on” and give a heartfelt thanks to the UK crowd “As Mackenzie Carpenter said backstage ‘the vibes here are immaculate’, we are so grateful to headline here, thank you for supporting our music”.

Lead singer Mark Wystrach heads down to the crowd to sign banners, and requests that everyone puts their phone torches on (lighters at festivals are well and truly a thing of the past now aren’t they) and gets everyone to yell ‘HELL Y’ALL’ whatever that means. Sadly the party atmosphere comes to a screeching halt in the middle of the last song due to someone in the crowd having what seems like a pretty serious medical issue, and needing to be seen to by EMT’s. After around 15 minutes they are moved out to be helped further, to a round of soft applause and the band asking that “Everybody please keep this person in your thoughts and prayers…”.

“Shall we finish the song or shall we not? What do you guys say? Well, let that be a reminder that life is precious.. be good to each other… cherish the moments.” a slightly sombre Mark says, before they finally close out the song and the night. A bit of muted ending, unfortunately.

SUNDAY

Sunday morning and it is HOT already, and Southern belle Halle Kearns is heating up the main stage (with a very cute guest cameo from her husband for a duet, and enticing people to take off and wave their boots during ‘The Boot’.

Next up, one of my favourite performances of the entire Long Road weekend – Fancy Hagood. There is something so immediately disarming and charming about Fancy’s personality, that makes you just know you’d be good friends if the opportunity arose, and his vocals are just gorgeous.

“Wow this is wild. I’m Pretending I live in that house, and y’all are at my backyard party. I rang the bell for someone to dress me this morning and no one came.” “I’m living my best Downton Abbey fantasy here” Fancy jokes about Stanford Hall.

‘Forest’ is ethereally beautiful, as the name suggests, and with lyrical talent in spades as well, it’s a hard pill to swallow the reasons Fancy isn’t already topping the charts, but then you remember what being gay in the country music scene can mean.

“I’ve been dropped from every label I’ve ever been with, and I’ve been releasing music independently for years now” elicits a huge cheer from the crowd, “I found my sound in the UK, so thank you. I wrote this one here.” – ‘Don’t Blink’ has that high gospel sort of reach of a song that wouldn’t be out of place played to a huge arena, and I truly hope Fancy continues to make the UK a home base for his music so we get front row seats. Oh, and I loved his country cover of Robyn’s ‘Dancing On My Own’ too.

Over at The Showground, the Cowboy Olympics are showcasing some terrifying horse masks for a frantic piggyback competition, before we are faced with the frankly quite hard to witness Hot Wings Challenge. Last year’s champion David Tomás accidentally pulls his own name from the game hat (which was only put in there as a joke) so he gets a second opportunity to maim himself, and is joined by four other equally insane contestants at the chequered tablecloth of doom.

There are many rounds of wings, increasing steadily on both the Scoville and poor life decisions scale, one of the hot sauces is even served up in a tiny coffin, and everyone has to don gloves after round 3. There are many tap-outs, quite a lot of milk quaffing, and by some miracle David beats everyone to the top (and in a moment of unparalleled self-flagellation decides to try the final wing despite having already won) to take the very silly trophy. We caught up with David after a couple of hours, who told us that his lips still hurt quite a lot, but Donna who tapped out at wing 3 was also spotted later that evening, looking rather worse for wear and begging security to let her into the VIP area to use the fancy loos…

We take a little trip to the O’Donnell Moonshine bar for a tasting session, and despite some preconceptions/misgivings about moonshine, we all came away with a favourite and a plan to use them in cocktails. For my preference – Lime (in a spicy marg situation no question) and Tough Nut (hazelnut, tastes like a Ferrero Rocher) are going on my wishlist.

Suitably toasty on a moonshine high, food is calling – and it’s time to sample the delights of the Texas Smoker, a fire truck fitted with smoking drums and a siren that wails to tell you that your meats are ready for consumption. Brisket chilli nachos won out this time, but every single thing on that menu is genuinely fantastic. Honestly though? The Long Road has a very well curated food selection, and a LOT of choice for a smaller festival, you can’t go wrong with any of the vendors here.

Over on The Front Porch, Chuck Ragan’s delightfully raspy vocals are soaring out over the orange sunkissed haybales tucked into the little copse of trees there. Between the smoking chimney stack of the hut, the hazy glow of the oncoming evening, and Chuck’s southern charm, you really could think you were somewhere entirely other, than the Leicestershire countryside.

Alana Springsteen is jumping around the Interstate singing an excellent diss song to her ex who told her she was never going to make it as a singer, ‘You Don’t Deserve A Country Song’ is delightfully tongue-in-cheek and I love that for her. “He knows exactly what I mean when I sing this” she quips, looking every bit the cool girl in her green and black leather moto pants and mirrored aviators.

No question my favourite set of the entire festival is Seasick Steve, and frankly I knew he would be, going in. It’s pretty rare actually, to witness someone act as a lightning rod for music, but that’s exactly how I have to describe Steve. Sitting on a rocking chair atop a riser, dressed in raggedy jeans and a sleeveless tshirt with his white beard blowing in the slight breeze, Steve’s past life as a hobo is projected stage side.

There’s a distinct no frills necessity to the type of music Seasick Steve plays, unadulterated bluesy country with a side of rock and roll, and the entire show seems to be going completely off vibes instead of a plan. At any rate, he seems to be compelled to jump up and move often “I’m just practicing, because this song is called ‘Backbone Slip’” he jokes as he wiggle-dances at the front of the stage.

I particularly love his array of unusual instruments, like the Diddley Bow made from as he puts it “A piece o’wood… this is off a chevy… this is a can o’jolly green giant”, which he proceeds to play with a slide and make it sound like a whole damn orchestra.

Leaping from a stage side platform onto the front barrier, he picks out a girl in a white skirt who looks utterly bewildered, and takes her to the stage to play her a ballad. “I’m gonna pretend its summer in Tennessee, and that I’m courtin’ you. You’re gonna pretend I’m 50 years younger” he giggles, and plays the softly beautiful ‘Walkin’ Man’, as she sits next to him in awe.

The rest of the show includes another guitar made out of a license plate, him chugging a bottle of (possibly?) wine, and heading towards the crowd when a fight between two idiots broke out. “I ain’t kidding I’ll come down there and kick your ass” he threatens, and stops the song he’s in the middle of. “I ain’t kidding cut that shit out, ‘cause I need to boogie! That’s it boys, take that shit out” he calls to security who have finally arrived at the scene. Never a dull moment.

‘Dog House Boogie’ might be the jam in the sandwich, being Steve’s most well known song in the UK thanks to his OG Jools Holland appearance, and it is as brilliant as it ever was, but I can’t state enough that Steve’s entire performance was phenomenal.

Bristol duo True Strays are playing the very tiny VIP stage in High Fallootin’ and have a funny story about one of them being mistaken for James Bay once, and being in a lot of people’s photos before they realised. Whilst I’m mostly giggling at the story, I have to say I am digging their more rock n roll sound – I’d like to hear ‘Matters To You’ again on a bigger stage.

As the sun sets on this final Long Road night, James Bay joins the throng bathed in a gorgeous array of spray lighting, looking every bit an absolute rock star. You might be forgiven for thinking that James is merely a crooner, if you only know him through radio, but I am blown away by the strength of this upbeat show and his undeniable confidence as a performer.

Leading with ‘Up All Night’ is a great intro choice with the clap/stomp, I swear every foot in the arena is tapping along, it’s a huge crowd reaction. ‘Hopeless Heart’ is stunning, and he simply doesn’t stop moving and dancing as he’s playing, the energy is infectious.

“I’m gonna do a really old song now, if you know it sing it up loud” he calls before dropping into a flawless ‘Let It Go’, but afterwards has to take a second and jokes “You guys, when you have a summer cough you just play guitar and sing too right?”. Honestly, if he hadn’t mentioned it, I wouldn’t have even known up until this point because his vocals have been impeccable.

‘Scars’ comes with a sneaky little snippet of Elvis’ ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’ and I love ‘Best Fake Smile’, but it’s smash hit closer ‘Hold Back The River’ that has a grip on this huge crowd. Everyone is singing, everyone is hugging or dancing, this is what a great headliner looks like. Kudos TLR, James Bay maybe looked like a rogue choice to some, but every bit of that was brilliant.

Verdict:

Despite weather reports threatening a gloomy weekend, once again The Long Road seems to be a shining beacon of hazy late summer, drenched in soulful wholesome vibes that are sure to put you at ease. It’s hard to put this festival in the context of festivals as a whole, because it feels as the tagline goes, like being ‘welcomed home’.

Whether you came for the boots, the beers, or the ballads, The Long Road 2025 delivered in spades. See you next year, old friend.