Photo Credit: Kevin O’Sullivan
With Thursday and Friday beginning our Y Not 2025 in wonderful fashion, we were ready for a Saturday spent exploring the festival and the various genres across the line-up.
After Mr Motivator’s main stage aerobics battled valiantly against the great British festival hangover, it was Nottingham-based Set In Motion’s turn to keep spirits high over on The Quarry. Fresh off the release of their debut EP Finding Something, Doing Nothing, the band wasted no time turning the crowd into part of the spectacle — Flying Too High brought with it a flurry of beach balls, each branded with QR code stickers like guerrilla merch in motion, the whole scene feeling like a low-budget sequel to The Birds if Hitchcock had swapped seagulls for inflatables. Things slowed for Past The Postbox, the acoustic guitar making its first appearance and a few phone flashlights gently swaying in the crowd, but by the time they fired up closer Break Free, it felt like Summer was well and truly here. 9/10
Being up the front to see Body Water is a lot more fun than it sounds — the Mancunian horror rock duo of Cerys and Eli, whose hypnotic vocals and gory glamour turned their Giant Squid set into something between a séance and a slumber party from hell, are a lot better than the name would suggest. Kicking things off with the brooding Taste and the gloriously over-the-top FRIGHT NIGHT, they wasted no time dragging the crowd into their monster mash of sultry vocals, fuzzy guitars, and playfully macabre visuals, while the silky, melancholic Throw It All in the Fire brought a rare stillness to the set. A chaotic rendition of Time Warp sent the crowd spinning in campy, gleeful disarray, before the wicked closer — the memorably titled Nothing Gets Me Wetter Than Revenge — sealed their cult status. Ghastly, glamorous, and oh so much fun. 8.5/10
Husky-voiced troubadour Drew Thomas delivered one of the most quietly powerful sets of the weekend over in The Allotment, his dusky croon cutting through the early afternoon haze like a warm knife through fog. Opening with the brooding duo of You, Me & Desire and Gemini, Thomas had the growing crowd firmly in the palm of his hand. The ominous intro to Vultures blossomed into a surprisingly upbeat singalong, Trying To Be You wrestled with identity and insecurity, and Do They Even Know You? felt almost mocking in its na-na-na chorus, but as the set wore on and the tent swelled with wide-eyed fans, his confidence blossomed. By the time Girls Like Girls and the slow-burning Smoke rolled around, the tent felt like its own world, Thomas beaming like a star already on the rise. 9/10
Aiko was simply a vision on the Squid stage: blur of glittering trousers, a constant shimmering like a disco ball under the lights, flashes of blue hair slicing through the haze as her head languidly swished and swivelled. Her lilting, entrancing vocals wrapped themselves around every lyric, even as she glided and danced her way through the set, sensuality seemingly sharpened to a needlepoint to strike with precision. Tracks like Nervous and Opposites Don’t Attract simmered with vulnerability, but it was Hunger that truly ignited the tent — a vitriolic eruption that saw her drop the mic mid-line, overcome by the sheer force of emotion.
Closing with Pedestal, her Eurovision entry for the Czech Republic back in 2024, Aiko left the crowd stunned and swaying, her sound slithering like smoke in the afternoon air. 9/10
Few bands can conjure good vibes quite like Red Rum Club, and as the Merseyside six-piece launched into opener American Nights & English Mornings, it felt like they’d summoned the sun itself from behind the clouds. A perfect soundtrack to a golden Saturday afternoon, their trumpet-laced indie anthems had the crowd moving instantly, feet pounding dry grass as Afternoon, Eleanor, and Hole in My Home burst from the stage with effortless swagger. With their new album just weeks away, the band treated fans to title track Buck, with Joe “the Blow” Corby’s breathless brass solo earning roars of approval. A surprise blast of Misirlou crashed straight into Vibrate, before the frantic pacing of Crush, TX sent the field unanimously into euphoric overdrive. From the sultry menace of Black Cat or the anthemic Would You Rather Be Lonely to the sun-drenched, ear-worm charm of Vanilla, the band were magnetic — Red Rum Club at their irresistible, brass-blaring best. 9/10
The Cheap Thrills’ brand of indie rock, back in the Giant Squid, delivered a set that was as infectious as it was chaotic. Frontman Lewis Pike was electric — eyes wild with manic energy, tongue poking out in laser focus as he tore across the stage like a man possessed. From the likes of Calypso Blue to the raucous highs of latest single Who Am I To Judge?, the crowd was locked in from the first unhinged jump. “Yous give me every bit of energy you have and we’ll give it right back,” Pike drawled in a thick Scouse accent, before launching into Reborn — and true to his word, the feedback loop of chaos kicked off. The wilder the crowd went, arms flung in the air and screams ringing out to the fan favourite, the more bombastic the band’s live presence seemed to get. The closing duo of Party, and Codependance, then, rounded out a set that was beautiful bedlam. Brilliant. 9.5/10
Straddling that obscure line between pop-rock and post-punk came online sensation Chloe Slater. With lyrics that often tread the political, the angst-filled and the existentially furious, from the capitalist-damning, anti-landlord anthem Death Trap, to the… also capitalist-damning American Dream, her set at times felt like a political rally. And yet, despite the serious subject matter, she seemed incapable of stopping the beaming grin splitting her face at the size of the crowd. In fact, that same exuberance made the set — from twirling herself dizzy during the acerbic, afore-mentioned Death Trap, and the cathartic, tent-wide scream in Price on Fun, to seething shouts breaking free during the otherwise subdued Harriet, released a few days prior, and even just the fact that she was unable to hold back laughter at the fact that people were actually singing along during her set, it made it feel like watching friends live their dreams. Delightful. 9/10
Even with Chloe’s joy-filled set right before, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone as almost overwhelming smiley as Norwegian pop sensation Sigrid. With what feels like the entirety of the festival arrayed up the hill watching, Sigrid’s set on the main stage felt like a masterclass in positivity as she danced and sang her way through a set made up of tracks both old and new — though, judging from the crowd’s reaction, fan favourites one and all. Even not knowing the songs yourself, you can’t help but be sucked into the swaying wonder of the set, though, particularly when it came to the “jellyfish dance” of, you guessed it, Jellyfish, it felt closer to a field of sunflowers reaching for the ray of sunshine on stage than it did the gelatinous, multi-tendrilled blobs. “Did I live up to the hype?”, she asked mid way through the set. Yep. Don’t worry Sigrid, you most certainly did. 8/10
It’s hard to pin down what exactly it is that makes Luvcat so entrancing live. Wearing their Saturday best (unfortunately playing the wrong day to make the proper pun) — ranging from suits and kilts to a ‘60s style, black and white polka dot dress — the fashion sense was only the start of it, as the band played through their eclectic feeling set. The playful Lipstick ran into the eponymous title track of their upcoming debut album Vicious Delicious, whisking the crowd away on a wave of haunting nostalgia, before the mystical, Western-esque Matador took centre stage; the romantically insidious He’s My Man and the skulking, seductively psychotic Dinner @ Brasserie Zédel felt merely like ruby red nails hammered into the stylishly outfitted coffin. Always a pleasure. 9/10
Greek-style plinths and cardboard cut-outs of cloud littered around the stage gave the impression of the Greek pantheon deigning to descend to Derbyshire and grace Y Not with their presence. But the Greek gods are a famously capricious lot, demanding that they be adored and worshipped. The Last Dinner Party are no different, every second of choreographed class and controlled, classical-coded carnage seemed designed to mesmerise. Perhaps, then, a better example would be the mystical courts of the Seelie and Unseelie, fae aiming to ensnare and entrap, from Abigail Morris’s haunting, almost otherworldly croon to the group’s hypnotic harmonies during Second Best. Their genuine shock at a pair of squeaking rubber ducks lent credence to their not being of this world, the pair of bath-time favourites taking pride of place on Lizzie Mayland‘s pedal box. Though, despite the wide ranging set, from the haunting Gjuha or the Palestine-dedicated Portrait of a Dead Girl to the live debut of Agnus Dei, it was still the closer of Nothing Matters that’ll live on in the memory banks — and the storage devices of the thousands of phones raised high to capture every second. Ba-rocky, mystical, ethereal… what more do you want? 8/10
If there was any doubt as to whether Courteeners still deserve their indie crown, their headlining set on the Saturday night should have burnt it away in a blaze of flares, sweat, and Mancunian swagger. From the first moment the crowd appeared on stage — a nonchalant stroll to the tune of Oasis’s Morning Glory, still somehow the loudest singalong of the weekend — before breaking into 2013’s Are You In Love With A Notion?, orange smoke already choking the night air from a pair of flares held aloft by the crowd, the band were a masterclass in anthemic singalongs. Cavorting and That Kiss went hand in hand with newer tracks like Pink Cactus Café or First Name Terms as Liam Fray held the crowd in the palm of his hand. An acoustic It Must Be Love cover only sweetened the deal before the closing duo of the ever beloved Not Nineteen Forever and What Took You So Long? brought it all home. 9/10
Check out our review of Thursday and Friday at Y Not here.
Written By: James O’Sullivan
