Still one of the best inner city/town festivals in the country, 2024’s Stockton Calling proves, yet again, that some of the best live shows are the ones with a keen crowd, keen promoters, and some even keener bands.
Spread over ten venues, and showcasing over 70 diverse artists, this year’s Stockton Calling offered perhaps the widest range of artists to date and – as with recent iterations of the festival – wrapped in a genuine attempt to spread start times out so that fans could make a maximum number of live shows as possible (whilst avoiding band clashes).
Combined, the multiple venues, artists, start-time, locations and all-round logistics can’t be easy to arrange and coordinate – so absolute fair play to all management/venues/guests/staff and helpers involved in what must be weeks/months of planning and preparing.
A couple of early artists stand out in the ARC and ARC2 venues, with Lizzie Reid playing a solid show in the ARC2 before Sun King play out a ‘70s style honky-chateau meets early Scissor Sisters set of piano/guitar rollockers which set an early high watermark including standout, ‘Start Again’.
North Shields icons Hector Gannet follow in the ARC next, playing with their usual commitment, presence, and power, with new song ‘Let it Pour’ proving to be both a highlight of the day and a real promise for the future of the band.
Sonic indie-rock follows in ARC2 from Velkro including the belter ‘Baby’, with Good Cop, Bad Cop following almost immediately in the ARC with a good-time pop/rock combination as the crowd size starts to swell.
Michael Gallagher follows quickly and, given he seems to have had minimal time to prepare as a last-minute stand-in, delivers a stand-out set and looks fully practised and ready to go.
A run down to NE Volume Music Bar sees a party atmosphere both outside (with the outside can bar) and inside (with music), with Megan Wyn putting on a strong, focused set complete with impressive vocals.
A run across to The Social Room for headliners, and potentially the busiest act of the day, CVC, is well worth the wait and the crush, with Megan Wyn herself getting in for the action.
The shame, as always, is trying to decide who to see and who needs to be sacrificed and though the organisers try hard, there is always going to be time/location/clashes.
Saying that, there’s always next year – and if next year is anything like this year, then it’s always something worth looking forward to.
