FESTIVAL REVIEW: YNot? Festival, Pikehall Farm, Derbyshire, Sunday 2nd August 2026
The Sunday line-up at Y Not had two bands playing that we have been waiting to see live for a while: Dubliners Brooki and London’s Kid Kapichi, both were excellent additions to the festival.
Matilda Pratt was our first act of the day on the Giant Squid stage, we were very impressed with the vocals from the young singer-songwriter who is based in London. New track Sick Pretty Boy was great to hear live while her biggest release to date All That I Want creates a rapport with the crowd. For us though it was the cover of Sam Fender & Olivia Dean track Rein Me In from last summer that gave us a nice memory to take away from the performance, a very entertaining half-hour. 7/10
Last Orders were already on the Big Gin stage when we arrived, the local Derbyshire band bring some nice guitar riffs to gently awaken everyone, Spend The Night and the cover of The Beatles classic Don’t Let Me Down were the pick of the bunch for us. 7/10
We caught a few songs from Death To The High Street over at The Pit before Black Honey took to the Big Gin stage at 2.30pm, the four-piece worked through an interesting half-hour set and even more interesting was the ‘plastic Tesco t-shirt’ that singer Izzy Bee Phillips was wearing! Izzy is known for wearing outlandish outfits and she keeps that tradition going today, Black Honey played at Y Not the last time we were here too and they have progressed their music somewhat during that two years with the release of fourth album Soak. The set opens with biggest song I Like The Way You Die that sets the standard for the remaining six songs, the best of which are All My Pride and Corrine that are played right at the end of the set. 8/10
The Lottery Winners have attracted a massive crowd to the Big Gin stage and no wonder, here is a band that toured with Robbie Williams last year all across Europe. Frontman Thom Rylance is his usual bubbly self chipping away at the crowd and getting them onside right away during the band’s biggest songs including opener Burning House and Start Again. Tom’s enthusiasm is infectious during last song Turn Around when he asks the crowd “lets get us into the Guinness Book of Records” with a dance routine that is attempted by the many thousands in the audience. Half an hour was nowhere near long enough for this performance! 9/10
Hailing from Dublin we are seeing Brooki for the first time at Y Not and they leave a great impression with a mix of grunge and indie rock during an entertaining set, vocalist Sarah Brooks must be well aware the all the band members of Keo are watching from the side of the stage. Forming in 2023 there is still some mystery surrounding Brooki, the project began as Sarah Brooks before the name change, Amber was the pick of the tracks during the set from a band that are quickly following in the footsteps of a few other female-fronted Irish bands such as NewDad, Cliffords and Florence Road. 8/10
Sophie Ellis-Bextor attracts a large crowd to the Big Gin stage for forty-five minutes of dance floor classics such as Murder On The Dancefloor and Crying At The Discoteque, you can’t help but sing and dance to these songs, it’s like one big party with Sophie on stage. The cover of Donna Summer classic I Feel Love goes down well with the crowd. 8/10
Liverpool indie rockers The Cheap Thrills played their biggest show to date at Mountford Hall the previous night in Liverpool and sounded like they were still coming down from that one. We caught them in Glasgow supporting The Covasettes a few months ago and really enjoyed the performance, they have attracted a large crowd to the Giant Squid tent where we get to hear a few new tracks from the upcoming debut album Keep Cheap, have a listen to these guys, they could quite possibly be the next breakout band from Liverpool. Lewis Pike on vocals & guitar is a real buzz of energy on the stage while Terry Eaves brings another dimension to the music when on keyboards that seems to bring the music more alive, it really is difficult to pick a couple of standout tracks … they were all excellent but maybe Last Orders and Codependence stood out? Or would it be Walton Vale and Calypso Blue? Honestly can’t wait to see these guys again at The Poetry Club in Glasgow on 7th October. 9/10
We were gutted to miss Kid Kapichi supporting the legends that are Madness in Edinburgh a couple of years ago so were glad to see them added to the Y Not festival. Jack Wilson (vocals & guitar) and Eddie Lewis (bass) bring their own version of punk rock to the festival with hard hitting tunes such as Let’s Get To Work and New England, the mosh pits usually take off pretty quick during a Kid Kapichi gig and today is no different, they may have only had half an hour but they make their mark on the large crowd in The Quarry tent, last song Smash The Gaff has everyone leave with big smiles on their faces. Kid Kapichi head out on a fair-sized UK & EU tour in November/December and is well worth checking out. 8/10
The set from Keo was the most anticipated of the weekend alongside The Reytons, this band have broke through so quickly over the past year gaining a massive fanbase in the process as can be seen by the size of the venues they have booked for the tour later this year to promote their debut album Put A Smile On For Me, the great news is that they play six of the songs from that release tonight – Be Happy, That’s Me, Pistol, Spent On You, Best I Can Do and Black Dress being the songs. Chants of Keo, Keo Keo go around the tent as they take to the stage, the mostly young crowd are right up for this one, the raw sound of this band can be compared to such as Wunderhorse, there is a new sound emerging in the UK and Irish music scene and Keo are right at the heart of it. Keo are brothers Finn & Conor Keogh (hence the band name) with Jimmy Lanwern (guitar) and Oli Spackman (drums) making up the four-piece who are based in London but are much travelled. Thorn and I Lied, Amber get the crowd excited as they did recently when we saw them in Liverpool (Sound City) and Glasgow (TRNSMT). One takeaway for us would be that Keo should have been on the Big Gin stage and maybe swapped for Scissor Sisters but at the same time this performance in the tent was in the top three of the weekend for us alongside The Reytons and Inspiral Carpets. 10/10
A six-hour drive home through the night was ahead so we decided to catch the set from West Lothian’s finest band The Snuts instead of The Streets who were on the Big Gin stage, Jack Cochrane and co entertained the massive crowd over at The Quarry tent, the final act of the weekend for us. With fourth album Joy In Short Moments due for release in October we were treated to four tracks from the upcoming album – Defibrillator, Summer Rain, Motherlands and In Motion – all sounded as fresh as a summer breeze, we are looking forward to reviewing the album in October. The tent is so packed we can’t even get inside, these four lads have come so far since they quit their record label and began releasing music independently a few years ago, all the big tracks the fans are here for are played including the crowd pleasers Glasgow, Fatboy Slim and Always. The Snuts head out on tour in December, there is no Glasgow date scheduled as yet but we are sure it will be another trip to the OVO Hydro for that one! 9/10
This was the perfect end to a weekend of beautiful weather and great music, will we be back next year … Y Not!
Check out our reviews of Thursday/Friday and Saturday at the festival.
Written by: Alan Brown
