Artic. Monkeys

This is the Truck that nearly didn't happen, the orginal summer date being rained off, and a rescheduled event happening in chilly September. I think I prefer the idea of an autumnal festival - more time to sup soup and be wistful, and fewer oafs swigging cider and doing something gauche like enjoying themselves.

TRUCK 2007, Hill Farm, Steventon

With the reliably infectious sounds of The Drugsquad wafting over the queue, we find our way into the rescheduled Truck, and straight to The Market Stage for Gog, who display their atonal cabaret schtick with lots of volume and a pink wig. They’re like forgotten local oddballs Dog, but not as good…until we see the programme and discover that they are Dog. But not as good. That’s a bit sad, really.

Actress Hands: Thumbs down; pull your fingers out; read the manual. Oh, somebody stop us! Suffice to say that Actress Hands are a dull punky indie band with rubbish guitar solos.

Enemies of lispers the world over, Restlesslist are an unusual bunch. Their first number is a limp, tinny post-rock bounce, a sort of 65 Minutes Of Static, but then they suddenly throw in some big band samples, drag on a trumpet player, and it all sounds rather wonderfully like the incidental music to Batman. Things taper off again, but that’s probably because all the machines break, along with some of the guitar strings.

Coley Park aren’t that bad, they’ve got some decent light rock and a slight country twang, but they make little impact on the consciousness. If Buffy The Vampire Slayer were set in Swindon, these guys would be playing The Bronze.

Jim Protector are a sort of Scandinavian iLiKETRAiNS: well, we dare say they run on time and don’t smell of piss in Northern Europe. Anyway, they’re a diverting act, with a nicely understated drummer.

Country rock is really the lingua franca of Truck, and Babel have a fair crack at it. There’s some enticingly slurred fiddle, but they really take off when they get that floor to the floor hoedown groove going. Hey, look, we’re literally tapping our feet! Now we’re really in the festival vibe!

Do we really want to hear sensitive post-grunge, fronted by a man whose voice cracks every other syllable? We don’t, which is why we shan’t be seeking The Holy Orders out again. We preferred it when the Barn was full of metal bands - even if they were rubbish they were at least unignorable.

We promised ourselves we wouldn’t spend all Truck watching our favourite local bands, and yet somehow here we are before the mighty Stornoway once again. Maybe the main stage sucks a little intimacy from their winsome folk pop, but eco-jazz shuffle "The Good Fish Guide" still sounds gloriously like The Proclaimers played by The Grumbleweeds, via The Divine Comedy, and we leave with a broad smile.

When A Scholar And A Physician rap, it makes Morris Minor & The Majors look like Public Enemy. There are millions of them, and the whole experience is akin to a techno revue performed by the cast of Why Don’t You? Which means it’s mostly dumb, but you’d have to be a pretty miserable soul to actively dislike it.

We’re going to start a support group for people like us who loved Piney Gir’s debut electro album, and have become deeply disillusioned with her myriad novelty projects ever since. Can this cod C&W Roadshow malarkey and get back to the keyboards, woman!

It seems only right that we go and see some properly apocalyptic, hellfire preacher country after that. With the biggest beard at Truck, and the loudest acoustic guitar in the hemisphere, Josh T Pearson smashes out his Bible-black dirges with arresting intensity. The cavernous sound is strangely like Merle Haggard having a crack at dronecore, and as such is the best act so far.

Back at The Market Stage, which incidentally has the best sound and atmosphere of the festival, we find Sam Isaac plying his acoustic pop trade. A touch of ‘cello, and a tiny tinge of Kitchenware Records makes it a sufficiently enjoyable spectacle to detain us for a few tunes.