Bearded Theory 2026
Our first festival of the year - Bearded Theory - here is an insight into what we got up to over the long weekend and the fabulous artists we had the privilege of watching.
We kicked off the summer early doors with Bearded Theory, which was a four day music festival in South Derbyshire and what a solid start to the summer it was! It was an absolute scorcher, and we got straight into the music with our first act being Andrea Kenny on the Woodland Stage, who we’d only discovered thanks to the lineup of this event and doing some listening beforehand. Alternative-folk/rock is what I’d label the overall genre of Andrea’s music as, and her lyrics are so touching, beautiful and honest. “Lay your Head” was the first song I listened to and it had me gripped from the start - in fact, I’m not ashamed to admit, I had a little cry. Just know that if a song makes me cry the first time I hear it, then that’s me hooked for life! Another poignant track is “Passage of Time”.
Seeing Andrea on stage did not disappoint - She delivered her songs perfectly and her crowd interaction, stage presence and sense of humour shone through from the second she stepped out. Two highlights for me, were her inability to ignore the person dressed as a dinosaur in the crowd, which she found incredibly amusing, and secondly, her blunder in the dying seconds of her gig where she managed to get her own name wrong, calling herself Andrea Kennedy and had the whole crowd chanting “Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy”. Impeccable start to the weekend!
Andrea Kenny playing “Lay your Head” at Bearded Theory 2026
We had quite a big gap after Andrea Kenn(ed)y, and decided to check out some of the beers while scrambling for shade in the midday sun. It wasn’t long before we were perched on a hay bale, beer in hand, watching our fellow festival-goers walk by.
After a couple of beers and a look around some stalls, we took ourselves off to the main stage where we caught a few bands we hadn’t heard of, before getting to the barrier to watch BCUC - a band from Soweto, South Africa, who make their music with a heavy indigenous influence, connecting themselves back to their ancestors - in fact, they rap in all 11 languages spoken in South Africa!: ZuluXhosa, Afrikaans, English, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, SiSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, IsiNdebele.
It was at the BCUC gig that we made our first friend of the festival - Becks. She was there on her own for the first day, before her friends arrived on Friday. She was such a vibe! Really down to earth, intelligently hilarious and genuinely just a lovely radiant person. We ended up spending the rest of the evening with her - attempting (and failing) to run on the human hamster wheel, seeing another few bands together then the three of us hitting the van up for some prosecco - farrrrncy!
Opening the Woodland stage on Friday was another fantastic discovery from the lineup - Jess Silk. Jess’ music is folk overall, but with a punky, political edge. I love everything she stands for, and her show was a pure display of love and passion between herself, her accomplished fans, and the wider crowd. At one point, the crowd gathered to lift a lady called Bridget up in her wheelchair and held her there for the duration of a song, as she sat high above the crowd enjoying the uninterrupted view of Jess on stage - another tear-jerking moment for me.
Thriving in the shade of the Woodland stage, we decided to plant ourselves there for a while and watch some more bands we hadn’t heard of. As luck would have it, Becks and her mate Zoe turned up to do exactly the same thing and we hung out with them for the next few hours or so. Whilst here, we discovered a really cool band called She's In Parties, who Tora loved especially. The band are probably classed as Indie Rock, but some songs had an eerie haunting vibe, while others were fun, faster tracks. I would like to shout out to the drummer, who had a beaming smile on his face the whole way through the set - he was having the time of his life up there!
Being Ferocious Dog’s last tour together, we thought we’d better pay them a visit up next. We’ve seen them a couple of times before, and they always give the audience a hugely entertaining show so off we went. Of course, they delivered everything we expected from them, and they drew such a massive crowd. No surprise, really, because when you go to any festival like Bearded Theory, Lindisfarne or Beautiful Days, the amount of Ferocious Dog merch you see people wearing is insane - many even have Ferocious Dog stickers on their campervans. They’ve got a huge following in the folk community, so it’s sad to see them go.
We spent the remainder of the day wandering around, stopping for food and beers, and generally preserving energy for our two main events of the evening; Skunk Anansie and Omega Nebula! Tora had seen Skunk Anansie years ago and remembered what an outstanding show they put on, so we were excited to see them headlining Bearded Theory. Things hadn’t changed, because Skin BROUGHT THE ENERGY!!! She played with absolutely no fear, jumping straight into the crowd right where we were and managing to maintain her vocals from the pit! They had an incredible light production, sound was on point, everyone’s energy was undeniable - overall an amazing performance.
Next up, one of our faves - Omega Nebula. They are an electronic dub duo, husband and wife - Dean and Adjua, who always come out with amazing energy, great songs and big smiles - Adjua is primarily on vocals while Dean plays bass guitar and does all the electronic bits that I have no idea about, so won’t even attempt to go into.
We first saw Omega Nebula last year in Manchester, while we were stranded with our old van in the garage. We looked up gigs that were on that night, and to our delight Omega Nebula were playing. I’ve listened to this band for years, so I was buzzing to see them in person. We spoke to Adjua from the band after the gig and she was so humble and warm. I think we must have spoken quite in-depth because we ended up finding out where they were from, where they’re living now, and that we would have all lived around Exeter/Exmouth at the same time! Then, as luck would have it months later, we saw they were playing in Paris this February while we were in France. Without hesitation, we saw them there, too - again, catching up with them after the show and they actually remembered us! Anyway, we were delighted to see them on the lineup for Bearded Theory and knew we couldn’t miss them. Again, they put on a fantastic show - had the whole tent dancing and the energy was electric. And yes, we hung back to pester Adjua once again, and once again, she welcomed the chat and said she wonders what country she’ll see us in next time!
Back at camp the next morning, we got chatting to a few of our neighbours - April and Frank from Glasgow in the camper across the way from us, and Debs and Simon from Norfolk next door to us. Both great couples with the same free spirit mentalities as us, and good senses of humour. All very kind people, too, as Simon was keen to share his rum with us, and April gave me a brooch which says “Proud to be a Paddystinian” - she’d bought it from a Palestinian man living in Ireland who makes these badges in support of a free Palestine. We had some great chats with each couple individually, and spent time sitting drinking with April and Frank in their awning when we needed shade.
In sticking with the theme of this boiling weekend, we also took refuge in the Woodland stage on day three. Not only for the shade this time, but Beans On Toast was hosting the stage all day, and I do love that man. In fact, I’ve followed him for so many years on various platforms, that I even recognised his parents who were standing in front of us at his stage opening gig. Lovely couple.
Apart from Beans, we didn’t know any of the other bands, but a standout act for us was Katacombs. Her relaxing, sweet sound was welcome by day three when we were all a bit lethargic and in need of some soothing tunes. Like others on the Woodland stage, she also came with great stage presence, some storytelling and even Frank Turner showed up to watch her from the edge of the stage.
Following Frank’s appearance on stage, Beans grasped the opportunity to have him fill in a slot as one of the bands couldn’t make it last minute. Nothing like being put on the spot, ey?! Frank Turner, of course, pulled it out the bag and gave us all a totally unplanned, unrehearsed but typically brilliant show to enjoy.
For me, the main event of the day was Kate Nash at 6pm on the Main Stage. Honestly, I’ve loved this woman since I was 16 and saw her with my best mate, Rosie at 3volution festival in Newcastle - It was £3 a ticket, hence the name, and had some pretty big names there. I remember Kate Nash being absolutely wild, plonking on her piano as she screamed the lyrics of Mariella into her mic, but we were in complete awe of her.
By the time Kate Nash was on, we’d met back up with Becks and Zoe who were equally as excited as us (well, maybe not me because I was over-the-top excited). Kate came on and performed banger after banger - needless to say my voice was a little raspy by the end! She also came running into the crowd and got us all to crouch down while she sang, before we all sprung back up again to the faster part of the song. We had a moment, me and Kate, where our eyes locked and I believe she pointed at me… honestly didn’t know what to do with myself. Anyway, we had the best time reliving our teenage angst in the crowd, shouting along to each and every song.
CMAT was up next, and I hadn’t really listened to much of her stuff before, or so I thought! She delivered a whopping performance whilst demonstrating 100% self-love and body confidence. A feisty, confident, Irish 30 year old woman with a fantastic catalogue of music and one hell of a voice to belt them out with. She was everything I am not, to tell you the truth. We sang and danced while Becks blew bubbles from her bubble gun and spread more joy throughout the crowd.
Following CMAT, we went back to the Woodland stage to check out Beans On Toast’s performance but sadly we lasted all of 5 minutes before the smell of urine got too much. Apparently, “gents” had been peeing against the hessian coverings of the barriers around the stage, despite there being actual loos in that stage area, and with the heat, the stench was unbearable for me, and so we swiftly moved on.
Luckily, though, Undercover Hippy were playing shortly after that in the Maui Waui tent. This is another of my top bands that I’ve seen live many times before and they never fail to get everyone up dancing and having a great time. This night was no different, as we danced ourselves into midnight before calling a close on another wonderful day.
Our last day and we were about wrecked. We’d drank, danced, sweated profusely for the last three days solidly and I think we aged about 15 years over that weekend. Luckily for us, there was nobody we were desperate to see until much later on. We spent most of that day back at camp chatting to April and Frank. We said we were looking forward to seeing Kae Tempest, but April had seen him years and years ago and said she likes their lyrics but all they did was shout last time. We said we’d seen him in Manchester (the same week as Omega Nebula while we were stranded!), and he wasn’t shouting when we saw him, so maybe give him another chance. April made it her mission to get to that stage in the evening to prove she was giving him another chance, making Frank take her photo for proof to use that she’d been.
We finally crawled into the arena late afternoon and caught a few acts from afar - there was no energy left for standing at the barrier by then. Then it was time for Kae. We waited for April and Frank by the entrance but unfortunately never got to see them coming in. Kae was phenomenal as always, but unfortunately, similar to the previous night, we had to leave for the stench of the loos!! This time, they were emptying out the portaloos right behind Kae’s crowd and the smell was unrealistic. It was pure shite!!! Anyone who knows me, knows that bad smells really turn my stomach, so of course, I was retching all over the place and had to get out of there. Later, we saw April and Frank, and they’d actually watched his whole show and really enjoyed it! Job done.
Later in the evening, as we were plonked down back at the main arena, I saw a man walking towards the exit “IT’S BILLY!!! UNDERCOVER HIPPY BILLY!!!” I screamed in poor Tora’s face, before leaping up (where I got the energy from, I have no idea), and running over to him. I mean, I have little recollection of what I said because I’ve subconsciously erased my babbling state from my sorry mind. One unfortunate thing I do remember discussing, is the smell of the loos (what a subject to bring up), but he actually indulged in the shite-talk and said that the same thing happened when he was eating his strawberries for breakfast… he thought they’d gone off, but it turned out that they were emptying the loos right by the artists’ camps as he cracked open the punnet!
All in all, Bearded Theory was a solid start to the festival season - it was one we hadn’t done before, and we would definitely go back. It was the only one of the summer we’d planned to do just the two of us as well, so I think it was even more special for that reason. The lineup was great, the general organisation of the festival was faultless (well, apart from the timing of the loo emptying), and it was about the perfect sized festival for me. I also liked that there was an older demographic of attendees there, so you don’t get the types of people you’d get at the likes of Reading/Leeds/Creamfields, high as kites and collapsing all over the place.