I Didn't Make it to the Knee Deep Festival This Year

I was supposed to be at the Knee Deep Festival in Cornwall this past weekend, and today's blog was going to be a '5 of the Best Bands I Saw at Knee Deep' sort of thing (y'know, like the last time I went to Knee Deep).

On this occasion, however, it wasn't to be. The two-day festival kicked off on Friday afternoon, and in an ideal universe, Vicky and I would have hit the road sometime in the late morning so as to arrive in time for the first acts. However, I was refused the day off work (two of my colleagues had already booked that date in order to attend two separate weddings), and so I didn't even leave the office until half past 5 on Friday evening. We also stopped for food before we got on the M4, and so we didn't actually reach the festival site in Trerulefoot until something like 10.30pm.

As we drove up to the car park entrance, two security guys in hi-vis vests approached us and poked their heads through the driver-side window.

"Um, we're here for the festival...?" I ventured after a moment's awkward silence.

The security guys responded by informing us that people were no longer being admitted to the festival site, and that we'd have to come back at noon the following day. This was bad news, partially because it meant we would miss the last few bands of the first day, but mostly because we had nowhere to spend the night. We drove around for a while and eventually ended up back on the other side of the Tamar, scouring Plymouth for a Premier Inn or a Travelodge with at least one vacancy. We tried four different locations; all four were fully booked. In fact, the kind tattooed man behind the reception desk of hotel number four informed me that the nearest Premier Inn with any spare rooms at all was in Bridgend, 165 miles away (about 15 more than our actual home in Cardiff).

Eventually, I ended up paying £120 for a room at a Future Inn. Our initial plan was to get some rest, regroup, and head back to Knee Deep on Saturday morning to catch the second half of the festival; when morning eventually came, however, we both agreed that the previous night's 'no room at the inn' routing had left us too shattered to bother. (Vicky was particularly traumatised, as it was she who had been driving around on unlit roads in an unfamiliar part of the country with speed cameras scrutinising her every move. It was not a fun evening.)

To cut a long story short, we didn't end up going to the Knee Deep Festival this year (to make matters worse, I discovered on the journey home that my OK Computer CD wasn't in its case - goodness knows what I've done with it). I was expecting to arrive back in Cardiff with a whole list of new bands to investigate, but instead, most of the bands on the line-up poster remain completely unknown to me.

But that, dear reader, is where you come in. You tell me: which of the bands listed above would I be blogging about right now had I actually attended the festival? Which acts should I be sad to have missed? I already know Mothers (read my review of their album here) and Flamingods (who I saw at Knee Deep '14), but what other discoveries did I miss out on this weekend? Let me know on Twitter, or leave a comment below. Feel free to include a link to the artist's music so that I can hear how much I should regret going home early.