Review: Black Deer Festival 2022

Words by Michelle Peet

Images by Ashley Peet and Caitlin Mogridge

After a two-year Covid enforced hiatus, Black Deer Festival returned to kick off the 2022 festival season declaring, “we’re in no doubt that this year will be our best year yet – and that’s a promise!” The big question – did it deliver?

Arriving on the hottest day of the year, after trekking from our car to the campsite and putting up our tent, we spent the first day of Black Deer Festival 2022 soaking up the sun and the atmosphere. Stepping into the arena, we quickly realised that Black Deer is more than just a festival – it’s a mood. Co-founders Gill Tee and Deb Shilling have paid attention to every little detail – from the Americana line up to the southern smoked food, the custom motorbikes and hot rod trucks, and the aptly named drinks (including Black Deer lager and Angry Orchard cider).

It’s also family-friendly, with camping wagons allowed into the arena (the perfect nap spot for our little girl) and a host of activities for younger festival-goers, including a ‘Deer Hunt’ activity trail, music lessons, skateboarding classes, silent disco and lots more crafts and outdoor activities. Some of the activities required an additional payment on site, but we kept ourselves more than busy with the free ones.

Over the course of the weekend, our 4-year-old built a clay heart at Forest Jack’s, played the outdoor piano, tried to spot all the leaves on her leaf chart, watched Dan The Hat’s hilarious magic show, and went deer spotting – all children received a prize for their efforts, even if like us they only found a handful of the 50 deer canvases hidden around the site. One of our favourite child-friendly activities was the children’s silent disco – it was a big hit, and it was lovely to see families enjoying dance music and pop hits together in the Young Folk tent.

Although Black Deer is fairly new to the festival scene, having launched in 2018, it’s built up a loyal fan base, with many rolling over their 2020 tickets twice in a row. The founders often refer to the ‘Black Deer Community’, and the random acts of kindness we experienced at Black Deer Fest are testament to that – from the watermelon gifted to us by our campsite neighbours, to the meaty Weber waffles that were handed out at Sunday’s gospel brunch in The Ridge.

After getting settled on site on Friday and grabbing some food and drinks in the arena, we watched our first act of the weekend – Jake Bugg on the Main Stage. Bugg’s set list included tracks from his latest album Saturday Night, Sunday Morning alongside older songs, and 2012’s Lightning Bolt was a real crowd pleaser.

Travelling with a toddler in tow meant an earlier return to the campsite than we’d been accustomed to in our pre-child years, but it didn’t put an end to the night’s festivities (for one of us at least). Whilst my husband got an early night with our daughter, I returned to the arena to see the Main Stage headliner, James. I have fond memories of James’ songs from my childhood, and they did not disappoint. Lead singer Tim Booth sang with infectious energy, and the joy from the crowd when James performed their classic hit Sit Down was palpable.

A highlight for me on Saturday was the Songwriter Sessions. Having interviewed Kezia Gill shortly before the festival, it was great to see her perform live alongside Cam, Lady Nade and Robert Vincent. Cam’s rendition of Diane was outstanding, and Gill’s excitement when she joined Cam for a short reprise before singing her own belter, Countryside, was heartwarming. The artists shared the stage well together, with Cam’s and Gill’s powerhouse voices complemented by Vincent’s and Lady Nade’s mellower vocals on songs including Conundrum from Vincent, and Wildfire from Lady Nade. The intimate setting of The Ridge stage worked perfectly for the Songwriter Sessions across the weekend and for Simeon Hammond Dallas, whose small frame belied her huge voice. Wild Woman was her standout song for me.

Songwriter Sessions

l-r Robert Vincent, Lady Nade, Kezia Gill and Cam © Ashley Peet

Lady Nade and Kezia Gill © Ashley Peet

Cam © Ashley Peet

After pulling ourselves away from The Ridge, we checked out some Main Stage acts, including folk-pop band Darlingside and London African Gospel Choir – their cover of You Can Call Me Al at the end of their interpretation of Paul Simon’s Graceland was joyful. We also enjoyed listening to Declan O’Rourke with his deep Irish voice and beautiful acoustic songs like Zeus and Apollo.

Saturday night saw a deluge of rain and a raging thunderstorm, meaning that acts such as Cam and The Waterboys had to leave the stage midway through their sets, when organisers shut down the festival at 10.30pm for everyone’s safety and wellbeing. By this time, we were already safely tucked up in our tent, and whilst we woke up expecting mud galore (especially with the campsite being on a hill), Sunday’s sunshine meant that we could thankfully still venture out in our summer footwear.

Whilst not strictly fitting into the Americana mould, the Powerhouse Gospel Choir’s brunch on Sunday was my musical highlight of the weekend – it was the perfect way to start the day after the previous night’s downpour and was truly uplifting. The choir got the whole crowd singing along to Down by the Riverside and Ain’t No Stopping Us Now, and the mash up of One Love and Three Little Birds was inspired.

There is literally so much to do at Black Deer Festival that, even with 3-day tickets and camping onsite, we still couldn’t fit it all in. Black Deer Festival has seven stages – we spent most of our time at The Ridge and the Main Stage, and briefly sampled the music at The Roadhouse (alas too loud for our toddler) and the Supajam Stage.Even though we didn’t visit them all, one of the main benefits for us of having so many stages was that it never felt too busy on site, even though a reported 20,000 festival-goers attended over the weekend.

Whilst having our daughter with us for a jam-packed weekend meant that we didn’t last quite long enough to see Sunday night’s headliners Van Morrison and The Dead South, we still managed to see a huge range of artists across the weekend. Musically, my favourites were the feelgood Powerhouse Gospel Choir, Cam and Kezia Gill.

Other highlights from the weekend were watching The Chilli Eating and Hot Dog Eating Contests on the Live Fire Stage, riding a static Harley at the Sykes Harley-Davidson stand, chatting to other friendly festivalgoers and staff, and dancing like big kids at the children’s Silent Disco.

Our only real negative was the cashless payment system. Black Deer say this is to make transactions ‘faster, easier and safer’, by paying with just a tap of your wristband. However, this seems redundant in the days of contactless cards, and the process of topping up our wristbands over the weekend was frustrating, especially with queues at the top-up booths and the system even going down at one point. Also, wristbands could only be preloaded with £100, which didn’t last long when drinks were £6.20 a pint and food ranged from £10-15 per meal.

Overall, Black Deer Fest 2022 lived up to the hype and yes, it did deliver on its promise. We can’t wait to see what Kent’s Festival of Americana comes up with for 2023.