Mostly Jazz, Funk and Soul Festival

My reviews are personal views; this won’t be academic or judgmental, I’m not going to rubbish another person’s work or vision, I’m just going to talk about how I felt about it, and anything I found interesting or enlightening.

Link: https://mostlyjazz.co.uk/

The bottom line

This was a wonderful festival. The music was amazing, I drank too much cider, people were so friendly, the park had an inclusive feeling about it, and the festival felt like a big hug. I came on my own, once I got over my initial ‘god, I’m old and everyone is so beautiful’ moment, I got out of my own way and just enjoyed it.

I went alone, but the experience is much better with friends or family, which I know because on the second day, my Sister and Niece (3 and a half) came spontaneously, which was wonderful, and it became this lovely child-centric experience I got to share while listening to great music, while talking about everything and anything to Meg.

If I’m not making this clear enough, this was wonderful and I’ll be back next year, when it starts on my Birthday, so YAY! It’s got everything a festival should, and keeps its intimacy and wonder, yes, I’d love to go on holiday and take it with me!

Other thoughts

I hadn’t heard of this festival, not sure how that happened having worked in Birmingham for 10 years, been a huge music fan… I believe it might have been a conspiracy!

I’m not going to repeat information on the website. I got a 3-day ticket, turned up on Friday, got a wristband from the excellent staff (all the staff were excellent) and went for a walk around the site. This isn’t a huge festival; there’s no camping, and the 2 main performance stages were set up next to each other, so turnaround between acts was quick (5 minutes), almost non-stop, which I loved. My only concern the entire weekend was not to get sun stroke (33 degree heat all 3 days), which I didn’t :).

Grouped around the main arena were food and drink vendors, merc and activity areas, a quieter ‘off piste’ area with an undercover Leftfoot stage and surrounding therapy/chill out zones, great sounds and time to recharge, I could have spent more time here. I liked the layout very much, easy to move about, and find anything you need or want quickly, without feeling confined.

The music was a non-stop mixture of many different genres, including Hip-hop, Jungle, Drum and Bass, Funk, Jazz and Soul… a little of everything actually. The sound was great, no matter where you were, louder at the front, quieter at the back, lovely and clear everywhere. That might seem easy enough, but trust me, doing PA work in the past, great sound shouldn’t be taken for granted, I think they did a remarkable job organising so many acts and getting the sound this good.

Dotted around the place were Graffiti Artists creating wonderful images you could watch unfold while catching the vibe from whatever music act was playing. I love this kind of art, it’s current, authentic, alive and speaks of the moment. It was so nice to chat to some of the artists while they worked (by nice, I mean brilliant!).

This festival is about People, yes, you have the music and everything else, but it’s about people, friendships and family, family with a capital F, actually with all the capitals. The place is fucking bursting with this wonderful energy and positivity… love and acceptance fill the air, and it made me cry.. Did I really write that?

The Artists

I’m not going to attempt to list them all, as I didn’t see everyone, just the ones I did see. I will be doing a few stand-alone reviews of a couple of the smaller acts that were new to me and I loved, no one needs to be told how good the Ezra Collective are, do they?