Down in deepest Dorset in the rolling hills near Blandford Forum lurks a brilliant little festival that grew up from a pub gig in 2011 and now spans four stages over three days and has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for children’s cancer charities.
The first small concert was hosted to raise money for the newly created charity, ‘Teddy 20’ – which was named after the Twenty20 cricket match which was the original fundraiser organised to raise money just before the tragic death of 11-year-old Ted, the son of Owen Newton, founder of the organisation.
The gig was organised by Ted’s older brother, Tom, and the £400 it generated allowed him to put on a larger show – the first ‘Teddy Rocks’ – at the nearby Corn Exchange.
Each year since then the festival has grown and changed, and has now found its home in the lovely setting of Charisworth Farm.
The organisers have chosen to be brave and have set a date that makes them one of the first camping festivals of the season at the tail end of April. However, their size and location make them a perfect choice for either stout-hearted tent-dwellers or casual day-trippers, and our experience this year was that when the sun was out the car-park was packed and the site was crowded, but when the rain came on Sunday, numbers thinned out – whilst the atmosphere remained fun and friendly.
If we have one small criticism to make it is that the arena is quite densely packed with both stages and fairground rides – so there is a significant amount of noise-bleed between bands and attractions. This isn’t too much of an issue when the stages run to time, as staggered start and finish times are calculated to keep conflict to a minimum, but if timings slip by 10 mins or so it can be annoying – and the large ride at the back of the main stage could do with having it’s soundtrack cranked back a bit.
With regards the bands it’s a really mixed bag of genre-spanning talent on offer, and whether you are a fan of Download-style metal, nu-indie bangers, cult-folk stalwarts, or classic covers acts, there will undoubtedly be something to drag you away from the well-stocked bars or nice variety of food stalls.
And one thing we can say for sure is that the Teddy Rocks team have an eye and an ear for what’s new and exciting in the UK music scene…so it’s definitely worth doing your research once the line-up for 2024 gets announced to spot the hidden gems who might not yet be on your radar, but are set to shine in coming years.
This year the accolades go to four emerging acts in particular who, for us, define the future sound of the UK indie and rock scene.
One of these of course might already be advanced enough in their career to no longer warrant the tag ‘emerging’.
Kid Kapichi took the main stage by storm on Sunday afternoon, and amidst a barrage of pyrotechnics, delivered song after song redolent of social observation and protest. In trying to find a reference point for these Hastings rockers the closest I can get is The Jam or The Specials. I’ve said for many years that anyone looking to write songs about the gritty underbelly of the working classes will struggle to find material that hasn’t already been written about by Paul Weller or Terry Hall – but Kid Kapichi carry off the task with ease, and their delivery is as powerful as the messages behind their songs.
Our ‘new find’ entry in this list thanks to Teddy Rocks was Crashface. And without even having to think very hard at all we were immediately immersed in memories of Rage Against The Machine. With eyes closed it wouldn’t be a long stretch of the imagination to believe that Charlie Hinton was in fact Zack de la Rocha in disguise…
Panic Shack have been on our radars for a few months now since we first saw them play a few shows in Brighton and Tunbridge Wells. With the testosterone tucked safely behind the drum kit, the rest of this band of Welsh musicians and singers are on a mission to put grrrl-power back in the hotseat, and their style is bang in the middle of that ‘genre with no name’ that we refuse to refer to as anything like ‘post-punk’ despite the fact that’s probably what it is. You know the bands we mean… Bodega, Squid, Dry Cleaning, Yard Act… all those acts whose songs are like podcasts set to an angry (or perhaps quirky) rock soundtrack.
Perhaps ironically – or maybe deliberately – we’ve saved SNAYX to last. After all – that’s where the best deserves to be found.
In terms of ‘joining the dots’ they help us create a triangle of sorts, because we last saw them play as support to Panic Shack, and they regularly go out on the road with Kid Kapichi.
But in our opinion SNAYX are a band with the potential to ride the wave higher than any of their contemporaries – a truly engaging trio of musicians whose stagecraft and songs are of the highest possible order.
We want to write a lengthy review about SNAYX peppered with adjectives like ‘incendiary’, ‘quintessential’, and ‘mind-blowing’. But why use a few hundred words when those four will do?
If Teddy Rocks keeps up this quality of programming we’ll definitely be back for more!
Check out this immense Teddy Rocks 2023 photo album by Sara-Louise Bowrey
