Arriving on the Thursday evening at Kendal Calling we were greeted by a well organised slightly slushy site from the drizzle. It was busier than we expected but helpful stewards had us onsite and in our campervan space for our temporary weekend home in no time. We organised our van, canopy, chairs, wellies, drizzle proof clothing, cans and teapots in a quick half hour and were soon enjoying the sounds of Ash drifting over to us from our cosy base camp.

My plus one partner in crime and I eventually wandered on site to get our bearings and locate the nearest loo, as you do and found that although you can’t take drink into the main arena, there were plenty of bar options, with reasonable prices. We were delighted to find a tasty pale ale, ‘Lancaster Blonde’, as well as a fruit cider ‘Raspberry Rose’ or a creamy craft lager that pleased us both.

Photo by Jody Hartley

A quick meander around the site for a big bowl of Nachos that almost broke the paper plate it was served on, because it was stacked so high.

We located all our main check points, caught the end half of The Charlatans, which had drawn a huge crowd in the perfect bowl of the main arena. Seated again we watched all the colourful people go by and spoke with most of them of course. We took a homeward bound stroll but were quickly enticed towards the sounds thrumming out of the beautiful sweeping scooping roof of the Chai Wallah tent. 

It is one of the most stunning venues on site and housed an array of funky bands every time you went by. From dance to soul, to funk , swing, reggae to ska.

Photo by Paul Whiteley 

It was nothing but visually beautiful and atmospheric and always musically banging. We caught a band called Genna and the Gs. Really groovy high energy funk and skank. We boogied and stomped our funky stuff for a while and then slowly worked our way through the last of the leaving Charlatans crowd and got home to bed before 2pm.

Friday morning we woke up fresh as bunnies. The sky was a little grey but there was the promise of sunshine and white fluffy clouds on the horizon. We sat until early afternoon over a glass or two of Presecco, to celebrate our second year at Kendal Calling and the blazing sunshine.

When our neighbours appeared from their motor home and came over for chats, we all realised, that they were the same neighbours as we had last year! What are the chances of that?

Incredible! And what a hoot they were. Making our weekend just that little bit more entertaining, enlightening, enjoyable and definitely more hilarious. So, big shout out to Sara and Rob. Thankfully all our similarities and connection made us all the perfect four for rumbling about having so much ridiculous fun in the sun.

Eventually landing on site when the sun was giving it large, as were we, the sky was completely blue and we were full of excited anticipation. The first thing we caught was a band called The Jacques.

It was really enjoyable on the slopes watching over the crowd. The band were quite rocky and frantic in sections with great rifts and soft lilting vocals. They reminded us a bit of Nirvana and were thoroughly enjoyable.

We then decided to wander the woods and see what delights were being creatively expressed amongst the quaint trees of Lost Eden. 

Photo by Scott Salt

We were not disappointed. Apart from the closed off areas, that were to be open at night, which you were more than happy to look forward to coming back to, the place was filled with weird tree art installations, peeping tom sheds, odd manikins, hilarious signs and the obligatory KC Dr Who Tardis.

Photo by Scott Salt

At the wonderful sphere topped wooden Carvetti Stage we came across an incredibly talented solo artist Rory Connor. He had a wonderful presence, very humble and very talented. He gave a good mix of his own songs and some good covers too but his outstanding performance was his version of the GOTYE cover of ‘Somebody That I Used to Know.’ He had such great guitar skills and his voice was such a smooth lilting sound, it made all of us feel we should have been in boats sailing off into the sunset. We danced in the wood chip in front of the rows of long benches, probably in the way of the very chilled out but appreciate seated crowd and smiled and sang along as we moved on.

We approached the main Woodlands Stage and immediately changed our swooping sail away moves into a stomping and rocking to a very sultry rock sound funky band, Turrentine Jones. Such a young bunch of lads with tonnes of potential. The lead singer’s wife with young baby strapped to her tummy, bopping about front stage. It was a wonderful sight.

The setting of the lake side VIP marquee, the laminated flooring, the inflatable white chesterfield style sofas, the good looking bar staff and the wonderful view made for a very pleasant chill out hour.

Photo by George Harrison

We soon found ourselves, centre audience at the main stage again. We watched an incredibly funky and exciting African sound band Molotov Jukebox.

Lots of trumpets and the stunningly gold cat suit dressed lead singer played the accordion with style and panache. We enjoyed their energy, which gave us another burst of happy days energy, so we made the most of it and cut some moves along with many people thoroughly loving their African sound.

The Main Stage headliners were Rudimental we found a brilliant spot, with room to dance and good visuals of the stage.

Photo by Jody Hartley

They were brilliant. They played all their hits. They interacted with an ever increasing crush of fans in the audience. They built us up, and they dropped it down with many many fat beats. They made us wait all night for everyone’s favourite, 'Waiting All Night, but it was worth it. I accidentally hit so many people with my extensive wide arm dance moves. But it was fun and thankfully I am ok with apologising!

Photo by Scott Salt

With sore throats from whoohoooing so loudly and aching legs from dancing so hard, we very slowly strolled back into the woods to find warmth with both people and fire. We met a beautiful young musician and composer called Sarah Mac. She also plays in band called From a Window, but Kendal Calling was her first try at playing solo. We were totally gutted that we had missed the opportunity to hear her play, as her persona and attitude was very uplifting and charming.

When I asked her what the best thing about her performance was, she looked happily skyward with a huge smile on her face and beamed back ‘It was just mint!’

Around the cauldron fire pit were six foot trunks with large candles in them and a circle of benches. It was a warm and sociable place. Its a wonderful feeling to be round a fire with music drifting over and everywhere are smiling glowing faces and good often, hilarious conversations.

We then spent the rest of our night dancing on huge podium benches in the Strongbow bar area. Which I loved, because the music banging and the staff were gorgeous and amusing and up for a boogie while they served. But the odd thing about the area, was they had constructed a tree, out of wood, possibly MDF, who knows.

And although we had got to bed a bit later, we were up and at them and on site earlier than the day before. We sat excitedly between the trees, with a clear view of the stage, great sound projection, under the bright happy sunshine, on our picnic blanket with double beers in hand, hats, shades, a fully charged phone and even water too. So organised and ready for it, oh yes and dressed like Mary Poppins and a River Mermaid.

First up on the Main Stage was JJ Rosa, absolutely blew us away. At first her amazing voice stopped our chatter in its tracks. We watched and listened in awe. But then we noticed she was also playing the lead guitar. Like a rock star. Utter skills, effortless, brilliant and very impressive. Then she did a tribute to Prince but the second song she played was truly something else. Purple Rain.

Now you know that way when someone covers a song you love? An excellent song? That you could not imagine anyone doing justice too, because Prince just does it so well. You get a little fear. Well she pulled it off. She ripped it out. She sang every lyric in her stunning voice, following Princes wavers and amazing lyrical ability with complete confidence of her and feminine strength. And she owned those guitar sequences like a B***h.

She even threw out his solo’s while playing the guitar on her head and behind her back. We started off dancing along but then we were struck dumb into statues of awesome impressed wonder. TALENT TALENT TALENT. So nice to boogie in the sunshine and fall in love with a fantastic new musician. We officially now love JJ Rosa. I just wish I’d run closer and got a great picture of her, but I was glued to the spot in awe.

We stayed in exactly the same spot for Maximo Park. Noticing as we chatted to the lovely ladies around us, that the place filled up really quickly for this band. They were ever so rocky and high energy and the crowd absolutely loved it and we could see the crazy mosh pit antics from up on the hill.

Photo by George Harrison

Another good thing about Kendal Calling is even smack bang in the middle of the main arena, its not far to a toilet. It helps when you can leave a friend in your spot, not so helpful when they lay down to sunbathe while you are away.

Up next The Darkness, lively, lycra spangley catsuit dressed performance of epic proportions. After their up lifting enjoyable first song, Justin Hawkins spoke to the crowd “we are The Darkness, we are gonna play songs from our first album (the crowd cheered) coz its a sunny day and who wants to hear the stuff you never bought.” Raucous laughter from the crowd and they launched into a song they said was family friendly but called ‘Get Your Hand out of my Ring Piece.’ But that’s really not the song title at all. Great laugh watching Justin perform, even when he did a handstand on his head and clapped with his swinging legs. Crowd pleasing sunny afternoon good fun band.

Photo by Jody Hartley

We had a short wander. Topped up on beer. Folded the day essentials into our bags and found a close to the front central spot for Kelis.

Ahhhh Kelis. I was so excited to see her. She looked stunning in her flowing gold sleeves. She started with a few of her more soulful slower numbers and then stepped it up to immense proportions with her best dance tunes. She threw out a teasing medley, cutting to the next before the beat dropped and hyping the crowd right up with her tantalising musical teasing. when she played ‘Milkshake’, which brought out all the boys to our yard and as close as we were, the crowd singing long was euphoric and emotional. There were so many hip hop moves going on and ‘hey hoah, hey hoah’. spinning out a nice festival version but just as we thought she had finished the stage lights burst white into strobe and she dropped the electro intro verse from the original song version.

I certainly lost myself in singing all the words, dancing my best (or worse) moves, who cares. She was fantastic and she was the musical highlight of my whole weekend. She was everything and we enjoyed every moment of it.

Photo by Scott Salt

At Chai Wallah there was a great female artist called Soom T was playing some incredible funk and grind. We had a wander, met some friends and chatted for a while, loosing track of time, catching bits of that here and there, watching people be mad on mad rides, helping take pictures of gangs and posing ourselves for group shots that never work in the dark!

We rushed back to Chai Wallah to catch General Skank when they were on, standing just outside the edge of the enveloping roof and dancing to their deep bass funky reggae good vibe tunes.

After them we found ourselves drawn back to yet another session under the fake tree in the StrongBow garden from some more Dance Anthems from DJ James Hype and then when that got a bit chilly we went into the woods, had a quick warm by the fire and then came across a DJ set at the Carvetti stage that was absolutely banging out incredible mixes and scratching up the versions too. They were Two Good (real name s Jonny Rhodes & Tom Mitchell) and they were two really good DJs, totally collaborating, having such a great time dancing behind their decks themselves and loving the crowd who were dancing and shouting, ‘tune and yeah!, in honor, dancing and loving them back. They picked some belter tunes to mix up, seamless use of samples, fat dirty beats, skilled scratching of everything from new house to old school dance and even a bit of swing. Fabulous and funky, it was time for our dance off. Which we both decided we both won in awesome laughs and almost tripping over tree roots but cutting some good recovery moves and obvious cover ups. Those mash up Two DJs were just what you need from 1-30 am. 

Sunday morning was a slow start, our neighbours joined us for brunch and some bubbly which they had with them, because Sunday is Funday at Kendal Calling!

We found a nice spot on the hill on our picnic blanket. A couple of pale ales in hand mellowed us into the soulful sensual sounds from The Rag ‘n’ Bone Man. This dude has an incredible voice and as the sun shone down on the appreciative audience we spotted women dancing with flowers in their hair, wide sweeping arms greeting pirouetting men, like it was all perfectly normal, which is was for Sunday Funday. Rag ‘n; Bone man, big voice, big finish, big respect.

Straight after that we were hit with some serious real roots hip hop from the awesome and impressive Sugarhill Gang. what a blast from the past, what a wonder to see how its really done, tyhe whole field filled up with many hands waving in the air like we just didn’t care, shaking them lefty to right as hard as you might. they askled the crowd, “Y’all know what the peace sign is?” every single hand went up with the peace sign two fingers an sung along, 1,2,3 Peace! 1,2,3, Peace! it was real dirty bass and emotional. a united crowd good vibes feeling.

Photo by Paul Whiteley

We were crispy from the sun, over whelmed with performances so we took a stroll through the Lost Eden trees again, and back at the Carvetti stage we came across a young band, who seemed a bit nervous but gosh they really threw out some great funky ska sounds, and before we knew it we were losing ourselves in the woods again to the fantastic sounds of Trampolene.

Strolling on I have to give a big shout out to the boys who were doing this years impressive art wall, especially John Pearson for his stunning Indian head illustration. But the whole wall was a wonderful collaboration and they were really nice people too.

Photo by Jody Hartley

And finally of course, we found our way back once again to the banging tunes in the Glow tent, then under the Strongbow fake tree and finally after a long huggable walk with new friends, we fell into our pits, with glowing hearts and grinning faces at 5am.

Photo by Paul Whiteley

Kendal Calling: We had so much fun we almost forgot to take decent pictures and review everything awesome. But believe me the memories in our minds will last until next year. Because you were big, bouncy, bountiful and beautiful. Is it really 360 days until we come again?

Review by Lou Hyland