2023/08/24 – 2023/08/27 – Camper Calling – Ragley Hall, Warwickshire
Review & Photos: G. Rossington.
Some festivals are about discovering the next big thing. Others are about getting as close as possible to the biggest names in music. Camper Calling has always been a little different.
Set in the glorious grounds of Ragley Hall in Warwickshire, Camper Calling is as much about the weekend around the music as it is about the music itself. Yes, there are major artists, packed stages and plenty of opportunities for a good old-fashioned singalong, but there are also campervans, families, food, lake activities, crafts, wellness sessions, children’s entertainment and the kind of wandering-around-with-no-real-plan that makes a festival feel like a holiday. The 2023 edition, held over the August Bank Holiday weekend, was a particularly good illustration of that formula.
Faithless, McFly and Ocean Colour Scene topped the Lakeside Stage, while the Arrow Stage brought Reef, Cast, Feeder and The ELO Experience to the festival. Around them was a wonderfully unpredictable supporting cast: Gabrielle, Fun Lovin’ Criminals, EMF, The Shires, Badly Drawn Boy, Elvana, Lancashire Hotpots, Swim School, Cruel Hearts Club, Pop Will Eat Itself, Betty Boo, Audioweb, DJ Luck & MC Neat, Dick and Dom and the Bierkeller Schunklers.
It was eclectic, occasionally eccentric and almost impossible to be bored. And that, really, is the Camper Calling way.
Technically, the main festival ran from Friday to Sunday, but Camper Calling 2023 got going on Thursday, giving early arrivals the opportunity to settle in before the main weekend.
The Arrow Stage was already making a statement, with Reef headlining on Thursday night alongside Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly and Ellie Dixon. The official schedule has Reef closing the stage at 10.45pm, making them the first major rock moment of the weekend.
It was a fitting way to begin. Reef are exactly the kind of band that work in a setting such as Ragley Hall:
big guitars, instantly accessible choruses and enough nostalgia to get the more experienced festival-goers reminiscing while still providing plenty of energy for anyone discovering them for the first time.
The early start also meant that Camper Calling could immediately begin feeling like a proper break rather than simply a festival you turned up to on Friday morning.
And there was plenty to do before the music even really got going. Thursday’s programme included Panic Circus, tree climbing and the opening activities around the site, while the lake and wider estate provided a backdrop for people settling into their pitches. It is one of the things that makes the event so appealing: arriving early doesn’t feel like waiting for the festival to start.
By Friday morning, Camper Calling was in full swing. The Lakeside Stage offered a particularly strong run of acts, beginning with Swim School and moving through EMF, Elvana and Stickmen before Faithless took over for the evening headline DJ set.
Swim School represented the younger end of the bill, giving festival-goers an opportunity to discover newer indie talent. EMF, meanwhile, provided a fantastic dose of 1990s nostalgia. But, quite possibly one of the most gloriously ridiculous acts on the programme, Elvana’s combination of Nirvana songs and Elvis Presley-style performance is exactly the sort of left-field booking that makes Camper Calling more interesting than a straightforward heritage festival.
Over on the Arrow Stage, Cast provided the Friday headline slot, with Doctor and the Medics, Whatever Oasis, Funke and the Two Tone Baby and others building towards the evening. Cast were a natural Camper Calling booking. Their Britpop-era catalogue is packed with songs designed for a festival crowd, and their performance gave the Arrow Stage an appealingly nostalgic alternative to the dance-oriented Lakeside finale.
Then came Faithless. It is worth remembering that this was a Faithless DJ set rather than a conventional full-band performance, but the name still carried enormous weight. The official schedule gave the Lakeside headline slot to Faithless from 9.45pm until 11pm.
The appeal was obvious. After a full day of bands, families, food and activities, the Lakeside area became a huge dancefloor. Faithless have spent decades creating music that sits somewhere between club culture and festival anthem territory, making them an ideal choice for the Friday-night crowd. It was the sort of set where you didn’t necessarily need to know every song. You just needed to be willing to move, and Camper Calling audiences generally seem very willing to do exactly that.
Saturday was perhaps the strongest demonstration of Camper Calling’s ability to cater to completely different generations at the same time. The Lakeside Stage featured The Shires, Gabrielle and McFly, with Easy Star All-Stars and other acts filling out the afternoon.
The Shires brought their polished country-pop sound to the festival, offering something distinctly different from the guitar-heavy nostalgia of other acts.
Gabrielle then provided one of the weekend’s biggest feel-good performances. Her voice remains unmistakable, and songs such as “Dreams” and “Rise” have the sort of emotional familiarity that works brilliantly at a family festival. It is music that parents can introduce to their children while also reliving their own memories.
Over on the Arrow Stage, Pop Will Eat Itself brought something considerably noisier, while the Bierkeller Schunklers turned the festival into what can only be described as an enormous German-themed party. The latter was a wonderfully Camper Calling moment. Where else could you spend the afternoon listening to a heritage indie act, grab some festival food, watch a children’s entertainer and then find yourself surrounded by lederhosen, beer-hall music and people enthusiastically joining in? The answer, probably, is not many places.
As the Saturday night Lakeside headliner, McFly were almost perfectly matched to the audience. Their career spans generations of pop-rock fans, and the band’s catalogue is packed with songs that people know instinctively. The Setlist.fm record of the festival includes McFly among the performances documented at Ragley Hall, while the official schedule places them in the 9.45pm headline slot. The result was a huge communal singalong.
There is something particularly enjoyable about watching a band such as McFly at a festival rather than in an arena. The audience isn’t necessarily made up exclusively of hardcore fans. Instead, you get parents who remember the early hits, teenagers who have discovered the band through their parents and casual listeners who suddenly realise they know virtually every chorus. That is festival gold.
If the headline acts were the evening attractions, the daytime programme was arguably what made Camper Calling such a distinctive family weekend. This years’ event was packed with activities.
There was a Calling All Kids Club, a skate ramp, Chaos Corner, an Actual Reality Arcade, One Adventure and Noisy Toys. There were also tree-climbing sessions, bushcraft workshops, slacklining, puppet busking and storytelling. That is a huge amount of entertainment before you even start counting the music.
The lake was another major attraction. Lake activities ran throughout Friday and Sunday, while Saturday featured a Mega SUP Race. SUP Yoga was also scheduled each morning, meaning the lake was not simply something pretty to look at from the festival arena. It was an active part of the weekend. For families, that variety is invaluable.
A child who has had enough of watching Dad’s favourite band can go climbing, try bushcraft, play on the skate ramp or head towards the lake. Parents can enjoy a coffee while the children are occupied, before everyone reconvenes for the next musical adventure.
There was even a wellness programme running alongside everything else, with morning yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi, meditation, breathwork and sound baths.In other words, you could spend your morning trying to find your inner peace and your evening dancing to Faithless. That feels very Camper Calling.
Sunday had a distinctly celebratory feel. Badly Drawn Boy was among the Lakeside highlights, while Fun Lovin’ Criminals, The Rifles, The Lottery Winners and Lancashire Hotpots provided a succession of very different sounds before Ocean Colour Scene took the headline slot.
Badly Drawn Boy brought his understated songwriting to the afternoon, while Cruel Hearts Club represented the newer indie end of the spectrum.
The Lancashire Hotpots, meanwhile, were an entirely different proposition. Their mixture of northern humour, folk influences and audience participation is almost tailor-made for a festival crowd. They are not an act you simply watch; you join in.
Betty Boo also added some retro-pop sparkle, while DJ Luck & MC Neat provided a dose of garage nostalgia later in the Arrow Stage programme.
Dick and Dom brought their DJ set might have been one of the most family-friendly ways imaginable to get an audience dancing. For parents, there was nostalgia. For children, there was the excitement of seeing familiar television personalities turned into festival DJs.
The Arrow Stage eventually handed its closing slot to The ELO Experience. Tribute acts can be a risky proposition, but Electric Light Orchestra’s songs are so rich in melody and spectacle that they are almost impossible to resist in a festival environment. Their inclusion also fitted Camper Calling’s broader philosophy: if people want to hear great songs and have fun, why be precious about the category?
The Lakeside Stage, meanwhile, belonged to Ocean Colour Scene. Few bands could have provided a more appropriate Sunday-night soundtrack.
Ocean Colour Scene’s combination of indie rock, soul and Britpop nostalgia has become deeply embedded in British festival culture. Songs such as “The Day We Caught the Train”, “The Riverboat Song” and “You’ve Got It Bad” have enormous communal appeal.
After three days of music, activities, food and family adventures, it was a suitably warm way to bring the weekend to a close.
Music may be the headline, but food is one of the things that can make or break a family festival. Camper Calling’s broader appeal lies in allowing people to spend the entire day on site, and that means having enough variety to keep everyone fed.
The festival’s layout encouraged wandering between the stages, activity areas, lake and food and drink spaces rather than treating the event as a series of concerts.
You could watch Gabrielle, head off for something to eat, catch Dick and Dom, wander around the craft areas, grab a drink and then return to the Lakeside Stage for McFly. The food becomes part of the experience rather than simply fuel between performances. It also contributes to the social nature of the festival. Families sit together, friends compare what they’ve eaten, strangers share tables and the whole site takes on the feel of a temporary village.
Perhaps the most striking thing about the 2023 programme is how little time you actually needed to spend standing in front of a stage. The Zen areas offered meditation, breathwork, sound baths and yoga. The lake offered SUP activities and the Mega SUP Race. Crafters Calling included floral crown, jewellery, record, lantern-making and psychedelic suncatcher workshops. There were house tours, a Midsummer Night’s Trail and a Rusticus Lantern Adventure.
The woods brought tree climbing, bushcraft, slacklining and storytelling. And when evening arrived, the Silent Disco Kings took over for those who still had energy left. That is a remarkable range of options. It also explains why the festival works particularly well for groups containing people with different interests.
One person can be there for Ocean Colour Scene. Another can spend half the weekend around the lake. A child can be obsessed with the skate ramp. Someone else can attend yoga each morning. And somehow everyone can still meet up for dinner and a headline performance. That is the magic of the format.
None of this would work quite as well without Ragley Hall. The estate provides a beautiful backdrop and gives Camper Calling a sense of place. The festival is not simply occupying an anonymous field; it is woven into the grounds of a historic country estate.
That setting encourages people to explore. There are paths to wander, gardens and woodland areas, the lake, the festival fields and, of course, the house itself. It gives Camper Calling a more relaxed personality than many large festivals.
And when Ocean Colour Scene finally brought the Lakeside Stage weekend to a close, Camper Calling had once again demonstrated that its greatest achievement isn’t booking one enormous headliner. It is creating a place where everyone can find their own favourite moment.
