Three Lions Roar on the Beach at Lytham

Leafy Lytham has established itself as a heavy weight in the Northern festival scene over recent years – a place where you can bring a bucket and spade and watch current legends plus kings and queens of yesteryear resurface onto the big stage. This year was no different with famous faces from thirty years ago filling the weekend bill and bringing smiles to those that can remember the glory years. UKFestivalGuides was there to report:

Saturday

Lightning Seeds

Lytham Festival’s organisers had a moment of programming genius on the Saturday – how often do you get to watch the Lightning Seeds play Three Lions live leading right up to the kick off of an

England quarter final in the Euros!? What else on planet earth could get you more psyched up for the big game? Six pints of lager could not compete with this; Three Lions live, only seconds before the ref blew his whistle – this was the ultimate footballing narcotic; the ultimate football high. Thank you Lytham – we will carry this memory right to our death beds.

England Vs Switzerland

Watching monumental England football games at festivals is a rare entity – but to stop the music entirely forcing everyone to watch the full ninety minutes is a once in a lifetime opportunity; something which you should cherish forever and be thankful that you were alive and well that very day. The sun blasted down, the BrewDog beers flowed – we even equalised very late on to enter extra time. But divine intervention was present that day – England progressed to the semi final and scored all five penalties. Thank you Lytham, thank you England, and thank you to everyone who was there; this was very very special.

Rick Astley

Rick Astley might not have been everyone’s choice to follow a famous England victory; but boy, did he surprise. Initially, the hard lads weren’t overly impressed and Rick had to address the situation: “Look at all those blokes standing there with their arms folded – come on guys, England have just won a penalty shoot out and this is all you can do!?” Nobody could argue with that – then a reinvented Mr Astley ripped into an almighty set including his own Together Forever, Sam Fender’s youthful Seventeen Going Under, AC/DC’s Highway To Hell, before finishing on his eternal Never Gonna Give You Up. Top man Rick – you were bang on.

Madness

Cladded in suits, Madness kicked off with One Step Beyond before rifling through a dozen or so songs then unleashed an AK47 round of hits on the now merry (that’s an understatement) audience including House of Fun, Baggy Trousers, Our House, It Must Be Love and Night Boat To Cairo. Ricky Hatton had a great time – as did everybody else. Top show lads – hope to see you again someday.

Sunday

Inspiral Carpets

Sunday afternoon really was a trip down memory lane for those that worshipped the Madchester scene; and it’s a sign of the times when your lad is playing bass – as was the case for Clint Boon of Manc superheroes Inspiral Carpets.  This was a greatest hits performance and no stone was left unturned – I Want You and This Is How It Feels brought God-like applause from those who had their albums on cassette three decades ago. “Turned out nice, annit” remarked lead singer Stephen Holt before Boon engaged with the “cheap skates” on the terraces of the fine properties lining the festival perimeter – all in good spirits of course. But the best was served last – Saturn 5 sent the indie astronauts rocketing into an intergalactic festive wonderland.

Johnny Marr

Johnny Marr produced one of the weekend’s finest sets crafting a mix of solo, Smiths and a couple of cheeky covers. Generate! Generate! and Easy Money were the highlights of his own stuff but the festival Gold arrived in the form of Panic, This Charming Man, How Soon Is Now? and There Is A Light That Never Goes Out – all resulting with explosions of euphoria from the well up for it crowd. That would have been enough but Marr had other ideas; in the form of Iggy Pop’s The Passenger and Electronic’s Getting Away With It – hedonism levels were at boiling point as the musical messiah departed.

James

James opted to present their back catalogue slightly differently – and employed the services of an instrumental infantry to bombard the crowd with an armageddon of hits including Tomorrow, Born Of Frustration, Sometimes, Sit Down and Say Something. Johnny Marr entered the stage to play guitar for Laid after Tim Booth thanked him for being a “hero” and for being one of the guys who gave James their “first break” - a magical moment for the adoring crowd.  Tim Booth was possessed on stage and spent several songs going walkabout much to the delight of the crowd before concluding a glorious weekend with Getting Away With It (All Messed Up). 

Thank you Lytham - it was bloody marvellous!

Photos by Jon Rhodes