The Long Road Festival 2024 – Stanford Hall, Leicester

This is our first time at The Long Road, and what a lovely setting, with Stanford Hall dominating over the mainstage. And this being a “country” festival we were looking forward to some surprises as although we like country, we would not call ourselves country experts, as we tend to only get exposed to the mainstream country stars, and as we know country comes in all kinds of flavours. So, this was going to be an eye opener, and it was! Firstly, a little about the festival itself, with as mentioned the mainstage, a very large tent, a cabin decorated stage complete with smoking chimney, a shack in the woods called Woodys, and a tin shelter looking stage, the variety is impressive as is the talent.

One big surprise is that there are dogs allowed! And to be honest it made it feel homely, with some excellent food outlets and reasonable priced drinks, a vintage, unusual car and motorbike exhibition, a small funfair for the kids, and even an axe throwing pitch, it has something for everyone. One of the band’s we did know and are big big fans of were opening up the main stage on Saturday, Morganway, and they killed it as usual. Not strictly what you would call country, but what a cracking band they are and about to release their new album, and such nice people, always time to chat. Another great surprise for us was that another of our fav band’s, First Time Flyers were playing the VIP enclosure, which you can observe from the main arena too, on Saturday and on Sunday, with two half hour sets and boy did they impress, which came as no big surprise to us. Watch out for their new single and album soon. We really enjoyed discovering the artists and bands we weren’t aware of and amongst the ones we saw, Gina Larner, Paula Cole, Remember Monday, Southall, Wyatt Flores, Chapel Hart, Angie K, Kyle Daniel to name just a few, with a special mention to Red Clay Strays and Pokey Lafarge, both more rock’n’roll and rockabilly than country, were fantastic and the tent loved them. S. G. Goodman played a cracking set, with an edge in the Woodys bar, and talking to her after, I commented that the first couple of songs especially reminded us of Patti Smith, to which she replied in a southern drawl, “I won’t take any offence to that” – classic. Obviously, you can’t see everyone, we tried our hardest, really gutted we missed another of our favourites, Jade Helliwell, and there are lots of acts we saw we now follow, which shows they impressed us. And the late addition of Dasha to the bill caused quite a stir, with the massive success of “Austin”, there is a sense that she may be the next big thing. In hindsight she probably should have played the mainstage not the tent, as so many wanted to see her, they had to tell people that folding chairs weren’t allowed so that more people could get in! The crowd actually stretched right back into the field, and she didn’t disappoint, with an energetic performance, really good voice, classy tunes, she is one to watch for the future.

All in all, we had a great time as did everyone from the smiles that were on show. The staff were extremely friendly, happy to help and well set out. It is a great weekend and be sure we will be returning the Long Road next year and we suggest that if you’ve got a hankering for a bit of country, you should too.

The Long Road Festival 2025 tickets on sale now from here

Photos by Geoff Griffe
Review by Jenny Griffe

CHECK OUT OUR PHOTO GALLERY HERE