Full A-Z

Brittle, timid acoustic folk songs sung in a falsetto style which conjures up thoughts of Jimmy Somerville. If there's a loud burp in the crowd it will drown this out.
Yikes. It's ramrod street punk, twatting you in the ears whether you like it or not. At first I thought I was playing it at double speed, but that's just how fast they have to go to get all their anger out.
Maudlin, introspective singer-songwriter fodder. Lovely voice, but I've seen glaciers move at a quicker pace than most of her songs.
Asian DJ.
Sounds like early Kate Tempest, i.e., London-bred politicised hip hop and soul. Supported Public Enemy, no less.
Comedian.
Clean, hygienic soul-pop not too dissimilar to Olivia Dean. She chucks in a few of the vocal gymnastics from Beyonce et al, but to be fair, she can clearly sing.
Metal band, mixing their own stuff with Pantera covers. Not one for a quiet pint and a sit down, that's for sure.
Nirvana. Just Nirvana. That's the review. It's so Nirvana that they'd better hope they're not served with a plagiarism writ if these songs ever get big.
Arctic Monkeys tribute act.
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The only Asbestos I could find (that's a going concern) is a death metal band, which isn't really in Kendal's wheelhouse. If whoever this is turns out to be the greatest band of all time, I apologise.
Best known for Dookie-era Green Day power pop anthems.
Jam tribute act.
A rootsy Janelle Monae. Great voice delivering sassy soul and R&B.
DJs churning out the big Manc anthems into the wee hours.
Karaoke but with a live band.
Adam and the Ants original drummer, now doing stuff that's got hints of Fat Boy Slim and Transglobal Underground. Rhythmic, beats-driven funky dub and soul, if that makes any sense.
DJ, beatboxer and live looper. Doesn't appear to have a beard.
The musical lovechild of Sam Fender and Gary Barlow. Neat and tidy toe-tappers with an extra thick coating of pop varnish. Like so many acts in this review, you kinda wish they'd just experiment a bit more.
Britpop bag carriers who robbed from Parklife-era Blur, Sleeper and others, giving each tune a 'school talent contest' reworking. You can tell I'm a fan, right?
60s soul, Motown, R&B DJs.
Influences from The Streets and Scroobius Pip. Political commentary set to fast-paced beats and breaks.
DJ.
Fluffy pop. Feel-good Spice Girls type tunes infused with chart-friendly dance beats.
A male Lily Allen (same accent, same delivery, same ska/pop backbeats) fused with a bit of Jamie T. And if that's not enough to lure you in, he plays a ukulele.
Now a lethargic old man with a knackered voice, he was once Morrissey's contemporary and a pop poet held in high regard by the music press. Eloquent guitar pop with nods to The Smiths and Prefab Sprout.
You can hear bits of the Verve, Leonard Cohen and Snow Patrol. The problem is, all those bits are incredibly slow, meaning that each song plods along like an old nanna with knackered knees.
DJs.
Oldies who sound a bit like Echo and the Bunnymen (but sadly not the big catchy hits). Lead singer looks James May.
Acoustic duo hawking out crowd-pleasing covers in a fairly perfunctory 'pub back room' fashion. What's Goin' On, Pink Pony Club, Keep On Movin'. We're not talking deep cuts here.
Reytons, Pigeon Detectives and a tonne of other guitar bands singing about life on council estates, getting pissed and wanting something better. Fine, but been done a gazillion times before.
Clean-cut Manc lads who've been doing the polite indie singalong thing for years. Similar sound to The Sherlocks.
Not sure if this is a band or a bar. If it's the former then it's Irish fiddly jig music.
Now 20 years in (!), these Strokes coat-tailers do a solid line in high octane DIY guitar pop-rock. It never really gets multi-dimensional or layered, but I guess that's part of the appeal.
One-time summer-pop indie b-listers, now hobnobbing with the big players on the arena circuit. Funny old world.
Fresh from Whitehaven (David!), it's accessible indie-rock that's confident and ballsy. Familiar but keeps you interested at the same time.
Click to listen:
Tangerine Girl
Hey Now
Indie's very own Andy Pandy (and a legend of the game) doing a DJ set.
Lake District teens having a bash at summery modern indie. More time in the rehearsal room needed.
Multi-million selling pop songstress famous for Thousand Miles, now turning out stuff that I'd describe as lo-fi Bjork. I think it's safe to say Thousand Miles will be the highlight.
An alt-country artist from Manchester. Like a C&W Jake Bugg I suppose. Worth a watch in Tim Peaks if Americana and Nashville stuff tickles your doodah.
Big rocky anthems from this girl-fronted outfit. For fans of Garbage and Paramore.
Big rocky anthems from this girl-fronted outfit. For fans of Garbage and Paramore.
Full fat Riot Grrrl punk that'll give your ears a proper seeing to.
30-year veterans who've stayed committed to meaty, if unfailingly commercial, rock all the way through. The British Foo Fighters, you might say.
Jazz-electronica fusion stuff. It's part Dj-ing and part saxophone playing.
Theatrical goth rock. Kate Bush mixed with PJ Harvey and the Rocky Horror Show.
Pop-grunge, not dissimilar to L7 in some places and Wolf Alice in others. There's some Pixies-do-goth happening as well.
COPY.
Fiery Irish four-piece channelling Deftones, Fontaines, Nirvana and the heavier bits of Radiohead to create accessible noise-pop. You can easily imagine them getting big.
DJ
Dark ambient, lo-fi dance stuff. He does the live looping and layering thing, rather than just hitting 'play' on his phone.
Folk-punk with a strong Scottish accent. It's the Pogues, The Jam, Gerry Cinnamon and the Mary Wallopers all in one scruffy package.
Melodic gloom-pop, mixing bits of Radiohead with Jeff Buckley and Florence.
Handsome, sensible balladeer emptying the cupboard marked "pop-rock cliches". Big choruses, Gary Barlow pained expressions, the lot. Somewhere between Springsteen and a tackier Benjamin Francis Leftwich.
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Ryan Adams and a bit of Springsteen in this Sunderland mob's grown-up guitar-pop numbers. Feels like they're playing within themselves, but it's tidy and well-articulated nonetheless.
They seem to do two types of songs: ones that sound like Keane and ones that sound like The Kooks. Decide for yourself if that's a good thing.
Lake District folky singer with nods to Sarah McLachlan. Songs are on the slower side, but she's got a nice voice.
Uncomplicated indie jangle, leaning heavily on The Vaccines and The Wombats. They'll never have their own twig, nevermind their own branch, on rock's family tree, but as decent smiley indie goes, it's fine.
Gothy, harp-laden ballads from a singer who's schtick seems to be 'Florence on downers'.
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Blues rock n roll that's unashamedly proud of its roots. Think Guns N' Roses and those 80s poodle rock bands doing the lick-heavy anthems in leather trousers.
DJ
See Ellur. Like that but more moody. Sings a bit like Suzanne Vega, which is a plus, but the music smacks of when a member of a boy/girl band leaves and tries their hand at diet-rock, i.e., pish.
Biffy Clyro and You Me At Six mixed with a Radio 1 Roadshow. Solid, occasionally powerful-ish guitar pop, but heavily sweetened to the point of being a bit on the yucky side.
Melancholy gloom which sits there sulking in between grunge and metal. See you there, yeah?
Emphasis on the dick.
DJs
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Hip hop DJ.
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Smooth jazz pop instrumentals. Not quite the wanky noodling of fully-fledged jazz, but in that general "oooh, look at me, I'm really good at this" ballpark.
DJs dressed as Nintendo characters knocking out partytime crowd pleasers.
It's dance music at its core, but they give it the big-band jazz treatment. It's happy stuff: lots of audience interaction, "let me see those hands" and all that carry on.
Discovered by Gerry Cinnamon, who presumably thought, "he sounds just like me". Catchy, working class acoustic folk with an accent as thick as fog.
Most of it is Morcheeba-sounding chill, but then they share a can of Monster, get all ratty and turn into Siouxsie and the Banshees. I just hope they warn the crowd before that happens. Well, I say 'crowd'…
Seems to be loads of this stuff around. Could-easily-be-AI sensible guitar pop. Song writing by numbers, but perfectly pleasant all the same. CMAT, Kacey Musgraves, that sort of thing. Her dad plays in Embrace.
A coming together of jazz, funk and indie. Energetic and a bit cheesy (or maybe that's just me not being mad into funk), but respect to them for trying something a bit different.
Big Norah Jones influences, but without the swing and pop notes, meaning it all ends up feeling a bit aimless. Exceptionally slow songs. She'll probably only have time for two in her set.
Cumbrian girl-fronted indie-rockers, but they're only just out of the starting gate in terms of musical tekkers and togetherness. It's all a bit demo-ish and shy at the moment.
DJ
Local young 'uns doing inoffensive and straightforward DIY indie-folk. A few seedlings of good ideas in there, but it all needs more time in the musical grow bag.
Not the straightforward tribute act you might expect, but remixers/DJs giving Fleetwood Mac biggees the dancefloor treatment.
Hmmm, hard to categorise this mob. Some songs are a like a heavier Fleet Foxes, some are Foo Fighters rip-offs and some are a sort of pared back Prodigy. Fair play for not being one trick ponies, I'll say that.
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Ed Sheeran in Stone Island (sartorially and musically). Major chord radio-friendly fodder which more able reviewers would probably call something like "infectious pop".
DJ
Pop royalty with a silky smooth voice.
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Dubwise, D&B full throttle numbers with south London-style rapping over the top (except they're from Bristol).
Afrobeat and house come together to serve up a rootsy-dance concoction that gets your toes tapping.
Chirpy, Cardigans-ish lightweight pop. Well put together toe-tappers, but you'll find more angst in an episode of Teletubbies.
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Same as Park View, i.e., Aldi middle aisle version of DMAs, Catfish and Sam Fender. Dot-to-dot indie. Beige emulsion of music.
They describe their sound as 'Chilli Heatwave Dorito' (no, really). Not sure what Kurt Cobain would make of that, given the efforts they make to sound like Nirvana, topped up with some spritely punk-pop.
As it says on the tin.
Another (yes, another) shoegaze-grunge-pop wannabe harking back to the 90s with driven guitars and droning vocals. Garbage, I paid you no mind at the time, but my goodness you have a lot to answer for now.
Hard to Beat, Living for the Weekend etc. Still knocking out stuff that sounds like that to this day, just a bit more middle aged.
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If slow motion acoustic grunge was a genre, this would be it. Not particularly unpleasant per se, but it's music that sounds like it's in need of a good feed.
Swirly psych-pop that sits somewhere between a toned down version of The Music and Mogwai.
Angry space-rockers. The Fall meets Joy Division meets The Sugarcubes and they all have a massive bar fight.
90s-influenced dance DJs.
DJ set.
Abba tribute act.
Poppy D&B mixed with happy hardcore. Best known for sampling the signature string line from Bittersweet Symphony for her hit Bittersweet Goodbye.
YouTuber famous for…. I'm not sure what.
The scouse Gerry Cinnamon, doing the whole 'fist-pumping folk for the people' thing to great effect, it seems.
For the record, this is the final act I've listened to for this year's review. And it's a sad way to end. Pretty limp, introspective folky pop, a bit like Damien Rice. I'm off to listen to Love Spreads to recover. See ya!
Afrobeat, latin pop. I don't know much about Jennifer Lopez, but she's about the best I've got in terms of comparisons.
DJ
Kendal Calling resident DJ.
I'm calling this Hindu psych rock or Bhangra meets the Grateful Dead. Hard to know if they're taking it seriously or just taking the piss. Either way, I don't think I'll be there to find out.
Enormous Wunderhorse influences with this lot, and when they're not doing that, they're being Jeff Buckley. Easy to imagine them being huge for a while.
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Asian DJ.
Had whopping hits in the form of Let Me Show You and Rhythm is a Mystery which are dancefloor staples to this day.
Toe-tapping African roots-inspired beats and bass grooves, overlaid with brass instruments being blown as hard as the human lungs can manage.
Afrobeat, dub and soul offerings, all done pretty convincingly as far as my untrained ears can tell.
Soulful lounge jazz crossed with a bit of R&B and roots.
As synonymous with Kendal Calling as warm beer, rain and overflowing shitters.
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Straight off the conveyor belt of jovial, chorus-heavy indie pop, served up by a bunch of young Geordies. Faint echoes of Maximo Park, Futureheads and latter day outfits like The Snuts.
Sheryl Crow on valium. Nicely put together acoustic pop ditties, lovely voice, but about as much energy as an afternoon snooze.
This lands somewhere between Amy Winehouse, Katie Nash and Laura Marling. Great voice when she finally decides to open up the pipes.
A very rough around the edges attempt at a Fleetwood Mac sound, but it's pretty shaky and embryonic in all departments. Hard to see how they got the call for Kendal, but good luck to them.
Rock DJ.
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DJ
Touches of Belle and Sebastian, Lightning Seeds and Tim Burgess solo stuff in these indie-lite offerings. It won't hurt your ears but nor will it raise your pulse.
Asian DJ.
DJ/broadcaster.
Lancaster rockers serving up tunes straight from the Thunder, Wildhearts and Ugly Kid Joe songbooks. There's a lot of hair and I imagine they all own at least one pair of concerningly tight leather trousers.
Battle of the Bands type competition winner (his prize is to play here) who sounds a bit like Dodgy if they were trying to sound a bit like The Libertines.
If it's the guy I've listened to (one of the founders of Brian Jonestown Massacre) then it's lo-fi desert rock, with notes of Neil Young, Beck and psychedelia.
Grime and dubstep DJ.
They make The Wiggles sound like Led Zeppelin. Powder puff, CBeebies smiley pop. Next!
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Drum and bass fused with vaudeville jazz and ragtime. For anyone who's visited the Chai Wallah tent, this kind of stuff has been their bread and butter for years.
Sigrid and Ellie Goulding tones from this Lancaster lass. Modern, well mannered pop that takes its shoes off before coming into your house and thanks you for having it when it leaves.
DJ with a difference. He plays a massive electronic drumkit (25+ pads) to get loops and samples, essentially resulting in covers of big well known bangers. Clever guy.
Louis Armstrong vocals overlaid onto mid-tempo jazz-funk-lounge numbers. They seem to write a lot of songs about the sea (maybe because they're from Barrow).
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DJ
Sounds like Five trying to do indie having listened to one Bloc Party album. It is to thoughtful music what Haribo Starmix is to fine dining.
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Asian DJ.
Digestible and sincere soulful pop. Hints of Sheryl Crow and Joni Mitchell. Seems happy to stay firmly in the middle of the road, but you'll hear far worse.
There must be a lot of Nat Dempseys out there. Can sing, can write a half-decent, sincere-sounding indie-pop tune but just doesn’t have the earworm capabilities or all round x-factor. Unmemorable.
For fans of Birdy, James Bay and Jensen McRae. Solid, soulful pop with good intentions, no bullshit or tricks, but a fairly low ceiling when it comes to invention.
Lovely voice, but it's set to lightweight R&B originals that would be a bit on the dreary side for Smooth FM.
Fontaines tribute act.
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Mid-paced jungle-reggae crossover tunes, often with snarly political lyrics.
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Noisy alt-rockers channelling bits of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Pavement to create pretty forceful sludge-rock numbers.
DJs
Featherweight pop with echoes of Belle and Sebastian and Jack Johnson, but the singles sound like they recorded them during their first ever get-together. Crack on and come back in a couple of years.
Featherweight pop with echoes of Belle and Sebastian and Jack Johnson, but the singles sound like they recorded them during their first ever get-together. Crack on and come back in a couple of years.