Festival Review: SOS Festival XIV overview – Whittles@tokyo, Oldham (Jun 30-Jul 2 2023)

Oof, this is going to be a big review with thirty bands (if you include the house band) spread over three days. Apologies in advance to the performers if I seem to breeze past you, but as a first-timer at SOS Festival I really want to focus on the event itself as much as the bands who played. This first post is just about the festival. I’ll cover bands in upcoming articles!

For those who’ve not been before, SOS takes place at the superb Whittles@tokyo venue in Oldham. This is a (seemingly) purpose-built two-stage music venue on the outskirts of the town which means that getting there is a doddle. Parking is stupidly cheap and plentiful (£2.00 for the full day on Sat and Sun) and within yards of the front door. The sound on both the indoor and outdoor stages was superb over the whole three days, testament to the in-house sound tech. So many venues / bands could learn from this – use the staff who know the venue where possible. At the very least work with them, and don’t just think “hey, we can push it up a notch more and it’ll be fine” as it usually won’t.

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The event is run and organised by the Appleton family, at least two of whom may well be known to many of you already. Luke Appleton (ex -Fury UK (not the current Fury, a different Fury…) and Iced Earth, currently Absolva) was compering all weekend as well as debuting his new Power Trio. Brother Chris didn’t make an appearance, but I’m sure he was busy with something! The other two are the lads’ mum and dad who organised merch, band bookings, PR, advertising… It really is a great operation and the whole festival had a wonderful warm feeling to it. Hell, when I was trying to sort out a cuppa in the press area, Luke offered to go and fill up the kettle for me. There are no airs and graces here. It’s a festival by fans, for fans and where egos have no place.

There is no need to be worried about missing any bands, either. The stages alternate and it takes about 10 seconds to get from one to the other. The weather wasn’t brilliant, but large areas of the back lot are covered if you nab a spot quickly enough. The drizzle on Friday certainly didn’t dampen the crowd, and you’re only out there for forty minutes anyway before coming back in for the next act. Food is available on site (burgers, chicken burgers, veggie burgers, chips, hot dogs, etc) and not too badly priced. I can state that the burgers were pretty damn good! Beer prices are about a fiver a pint, which I gather is quite reasonable.

So, the venue is great. The staff are superb. It’s run by passionate and lovely people. Blaze Bayley popped by (and I had the best chat with him). So how about the bands? The short version is that there was, hand on heart, not a single bad band over the entire three days. Sure, some were better than others, but every single one played well and entertained. From openers The Shape Of Water right up to Sunday night closing act South of Salem, every single one played to a big crowd – and deservedly so. Before attending, I think I’d heard of about seven or eight of them but I made sure I saw them all (bar two, due to late arrival on the Saturday and Sunday).

All in all, well worth the trip down and I thank my lovely friend (and Ward XVI groupie) Molly for sorting out the accommodation and convincing me to go! Breakdowns of each day and some very nice words about the bands to follow…

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Tickets are already available for SOS Fest XV in 2024! Grab them from the SOS Festival website.