Review: Nene Valley Rock Festival

Grimsthorpe Castle (September 5^th – 8^th, 2024)

Reviewer / Photographer: Dan Mann

I’m finally in a position to put curser to screen after a manic couple of weeks and give you a quick write-up on this year’s Nene Valley Rock Festival.

You couldn’t ask for a better setting for this fairly laid back festival, laid out beside the lake at Grimsthorpe Castle in South West Lincolnshire. With two marquees of some considerable size laid out on one side and stalls / food on the other, and picnic tables in between, which were perfect for the great weather we had, the layout worked really well, plus it was obvious to the casual observer that this wasn’t some strung together affair, quite the opposite, with a very professional set up, decent stages, two in the the main marquee, and one in the smaller marquee, good lighting and sound.

Okay I’ll nail my musical tastes to the virtual flagpole, with the exception of a few bands, prog has never been my thing, however this in no way reduced my enjoyment of the festival, plus of course it wasn’t all Prog, with also Southern, Blues, Blues Rock and even a little Symphonic Metal thrown into the melting pot of bands on the four day line-up.

One thing that is always great at festivals is discovering bands you weren’t aware or familiar with. And Nene Valley Reck Festival certainly managed to deliver some real gems. They were Crow Black Chicken from the Deep South…….of Ireland, who delivered a set that really got the crowd going. Ukrainian symphonic metal band Delfinia, who were excellent, and the superb Italian guitarist Simone Galassi with his band, who will be back next year.

It was also great to see some chums playing, Greyfox Conspiracy, giving us their blend of Southern Rock, The Room, a band who refuse to be pigeonholed genre wise, and the always fantastic Troy Redfern. And a mention for one of the best up and coming bands in the local area, Austin Gold.

And it was chance to see live some bands I’d not managed to for some reason, Deborah Bonham, Hand Of Dimes and Chris Bevington Organisation.

It’s certainly great news that Nene Valley Rock Festival will return in 2025. Nothing’s a given in these tricky times for festivals and venues, so a big hat’s off to the whole of the NVRF team.

My only other comments would be that I’d love to see a few more blues rock bands on the line-up for next year. Maybe in the main marquee, one stage prog and one blues, but that’s me just being picky haha!

Here’s some photos of the majority of the bands over the four days. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to catch every single one. For full sets of photos, head over to my photography page on Facebook – here

Thank you to Trevor, Andrew, Tony & the team for all your help.