The final day of the festival sadly arrived, however it featured one of the most anticipated and best sets of the whole weekend and had a couple of surprises along the way.
After a couple of late nights there’s not a better way to start the day than with A.A. Williams over in the Forest. There’s an other-worldly feeling to the entire set due to the setting, the sparse instrumentation and A.A. Williams’ haunting, hypnotic voice. Simple and elegant, this performance was one of the most memorable of the entire weekend. 8/10
Muncie Girls take to the Main Stage with an air of coolness unmatched by most bands to play the entire weekend. They breeze through their set effortlessly, going through most of the incredible Fixed Ideals with Jeremy, Bubble Bath and Picture of Health get the biggest reactions from the audience, before the set closing, the very powerful Respect. Muncie Girls continue to be one of the most important bands in punk and alternative music today; this set confirms it. 8/10
Hardcore/thrash crossover Higher Power play for what seems like 10 minutes; their set is so full of energy, passion and positivity that it absolutely flies by. With a set that consists entirely of the criminally under looked Soul Structure, it’s easy to forget how young a band Higher Power are. They play with the precision of seasoned veterans and some of the riffs on show wouldn’t be out of place in the heyday of 80s thrash and hardcore. 7/10
If you missed Single Mothers at the Cave on Saturday you missed out on something really special. The punk collective (frontman Drew Thomson thinks there are around twelve members of the band who record and play occasionally) put on an absolute storming set that overtook the tent, where they had every single person in the palm of their hand. There’s only so much gushing we can do about this band; absolutely brilliant. 10/10
Another of our ‘Must See’ bands, Martha brought a sense of unmatched joy and fun to Saturday afternoon on the Axiom stage. With a set that covered their back catalogue nicely, whilst showing a bit of extra love to the superb Love Keeps Kicking, Martha breezed through 35 minutes of jangly, emotional pop-punk to an enthusiastic crowd, who happily sang back every single word. Martha are a breath of fresh air in the genre and it’s an absolute joy to see them, and everyone else, have so much fun. 10/10
Every Time I Die would have been one of the most anticipated bands of the weekend regardless of the Hot Damn! set. However, the fact that ETID were playing their breakthrough rager in full gave this an extra edge. A massive crowd – including Tony the Tiger – gathered to witness the chaos and it was unbelievable. For just under thirty minutes, ETID tore through Hot Damn! and a pile of sweaty bodies threw themselves at the Main Stage like a horde of zombies. Then, if that wasn’t enough, the band then treated us to a further thirty minutes ripping through hits and fan favourites, starting with the ridiculous Underwater Bimbos from Outer Space through to We’rewolf, and coming to a close with Low Teens’ Map Change. There was no way ETID would disappoint; we just didn’t think it was possible to be this good. 10/10
Deaf Havana closed out the weekend with a set focusing mostly on most recent efforts All These Countless Nights and Rituals. Although they felt a bit like fan service, older tracks like Boston or The Past Six Years received a much warmer reception and it’ll be interesting to see which direction the band goes from here. Deaf Havana were always going to be a divisive choice for a festival closer, and they did a perfectly fine job of it. 6/10
2000trees 2019 was a blast from start to finish. Sadly we weren’t able to catch everything going on over the weekend, but the different camp stages, spoken word, art areas and even the yoga mornings set 2000trees aside from all other festivals, and it firmly remains one of our absolute favourites. We’ll see you there next year!
Written by: Henry McCaughtrie
Photos by: Calum McMillan
