Review: Gate To Southwell Festival's 18th Birthday 2025

For the second year running, I took my family down to Gate To Southwell Festival on Saturday, to sample a day of eclectic music, great food, storytelling, dancing, kids' activities, and lots more. This year is the festival's 18th birthday and there's lots to celebrate; the festival seems to be doing great, growing each year and attracting prominent artists from around the world.

For 2025, the event attracted artists including Jon Boden, Eliza Carthy, Seckou Keita, The Cadillac Kings, Katherine Priddy, Alabama 3 and Skinny Lister (sadly, Richard Thompson was unable to appear due to an unfortunate accident).

There's music for four full days, split across four stages (artfully acoustically-shielded from each other thanks to an intelligent layout and hay-bale walls); surprise sets and open mic performances also take place in the two covered bar areas.

The GTSF vibe is always friendly, chilled with a low-key but undoubtedly excited energy in every corner of the site. And the great thing about festivals of this size is that artists mix with attendees, clearly enjoying themselves just as much.

I started my festival day around lunchtime at the Folk Stage where I caught Sam Carter's solo set: rich but laid-back finger-picking combined with expressive songwriting and a piercing kind of honesty. Sam later performed on the main Lake Stage (artists playing two or more on different stages is a common feature of GTSF, and a great way to reduce the change of having to deal with frustrating timetable clashes).

There was time for a quick walk to the bar and a glance at We Mavericks on the Lake Stage before settling back into my folding chair undercover (but on an unexpected wooden floor) at the Folk Stage for Ma Polaine's Great Decline - a Somerset band who sound distinctly more Born on the Bayou than Cider with Rosie, melding double bass and electric guitar sounds with ease. 

Next up was the first set from the sublime Katherine Priddy. This crossover folk artist has an innate and rare songwriting talent and a delicate vocal touch which never fails to charm a crowd.

"This isn't going to be a dance set," Katherine announced - and she was right, of course. But the half-hour set was no less entertained, and included material from her two albums as well as a first play for a new composition which she described as "a love song to other women in the music industry." The song (which I'm risking a guess may end up being named Madeline) demonstrated a subtle shift in style and subject matter for Katherine, featuring finger-picked open chords and a beautiful rising then minor-shifting chord progression; her next era looks set to be a confident and outward looking one.

I scurried back across to the Lake Stage, while a lengthy queue formed Katherine's merch table, to see what I could of Alabama 3. They were performing here in their pared-down, acoustic format, drawing the biggest crowd of the day so far including at least 100 standing at the barrier. Their first encore was a treat to hear: a soulful rendition of Georgia, begun acapella by Zoe Devlin Love.

It was then back to the smaller Frontier Stage for what became a highlight of my day: Sunjay. He's a prolific solo artist hailing from the West Midlands who dwells distinctly at the blues end of the Americana scale.

Sunjay performed caressing a rich-sounding hollow-body electric from which he plucked some incredible sounds, his fingers straddling and bending strings like some of the greats. All of this was topped with casually soulful vocals: North American intonation mixed with a Black Country lilt. 

His set included plenty of entertaining monologue to complement some excellent covers and intriguing original material: Do The Dance was an honest exposition of the trials of modern dating, while a song about refusing to play Bob Dylan for fame, power or money, only to give in when faced with the temptations of lust was genuinely funny.

Back at the Folk Stage, another solo performer was just beginning: Mairi Sutherland, a multi-talented singer-songwriter and visual artist who delivers soulful, hazy vocals and a mix of youth and timeless folk history. She began with a 3/4 size acoustic guitar and I'd Be Bored, a proficient song which made great use of white-space and a pleasantly disjointed chord pattern. Beaches (out in September) was lilting with a good pace and sparkling pinnacles of high vocals.

She switched later to a larger, louder acoustic instrument which allowed her to further demonstrate her guitar playing prowess, bringing out some lovely harmonic chords to complement her rich vocals. 

Mairi is a great talent, and genuinely and charmingly keen to share all aspects of her art, including a physical, hand-drawn zine which she "distributed" (gently threw) from the stage at the end of the set. 

Following Mairi on the same stage was the Thomas Bradley Project ("acoustic"), featuring the eponymous band leader on guitar with an accompanying electric violin.

The pair's rich, fervent songs were thick with harmonies, and Thomas sung of life, history (including a recurring theme of the emotional tugs of war) and nature in a refreshing style with a subtle urban edge. At one point, he talked of playing in pubs in his native Liverpool, "meeting people who have dreams and are good at heart". This down-to-Earth approach seemed to strike a real chord with the audience, resulting in a wholesome standing ovation.

Up next, The Rosie Hood Band were an aural contrast - a quartet comprising two fiddles, a melodeon and of course well-known musician Rosie Hood on vocals and guitar - but equally honest and earnest, delivering heartfelt and vital songs. 

Ethel told the story of environmental campaiger Ethel Haythornthwaite, who (I learnt from Rosie) was key to protecting the Peak District. It's a gently rolling song, in equal parts pastoral and haunting, opening with the superbly evocative lines "‘Regret to inform you’ I read / Cold in my hand as the sky turned grey..."

Then, Tyger Fierce took a different perspective on the story of a woman who is thought to be the first person to die at the claws of a tiger in Britain. As Rosie explained, the tiger was taunted by the woman in question, Hannah Twynnoy, leading to a final - and terminal - loss of temper. A third song from the group's 2023 album A Seed of Gold was Bread and Roses, all about the need for beauty in life as well as the essentials.

Those three numbers make a good illustration of Rosie and her band's refreshingly different approach, finding stories and meaning in all corners of history, and bringing forgotten people, places and animals back to life through poetic song.

Penultimate on the Lake Stage was Katherine Priddy, this time accompanied by George Boomsma on guitar and close vocal harmonies. This set was typically chilled, Katherine exuding that low key but utterly focused manner in how she interacted with both her music and her surroundings.

She premiered two new songs here: the first was an untypical but excitingly angry one ("I can do angry too!") musing on the so-called witch trials of our country's past: "They weren't burning witches, it was women on those fires..." This was a smoothly flowing, smouldering song, the anger being of a particularly effective kind, under the surface and then bubbling up with inexorable intent. "We've got matches too" gave a fierce lyrical twist.

Her other new offering felt even fresher, an as-yet untitled song about "feeling at odds with your body"; wistful and directly poetic. We had seen Katherine at perhaps her most open and personal today. 

The 45-minute set included plenty of well-known songs, too, including Katherine's ode to the dream of canal living Boat on a River, the rollicking Letter from a Travelling Man and the much older Indigo, dreamy and pristine. Katherine closed her performance on a duet with George: the delicately emotive Ready to Go. Once again she had demonstrated her uncanny ability to hush any room - or field - of people, tapping into a magical energy no matter the time of day or evening.

Closing duties fell to Seckou Keita & The Homeland Band, an immensely energetic and tightly rehearsed group from West Africa led by the Senegalese kora-playing master himself. The band played in Nottingham last November, bringing colour and warmth to a cold night; here, they provided a fitting and joyful end to a sunshine-filled Saturday outdoors - and one of the few drum kits seen on stage all day.

The songs were filled with rhythm, sparking a huge dance at the front of the tent, mixing English, French and Senegalese; it was a set which was richly colourful both aurally and visually, as kora, guitar, keys and vocals mixed with throbbing basslines - all driven by a crisp, jammy rhythm section.

Darkness fell slowly but inevitably, and a chill crept into the air; but all was warmth and light around the stage as Seckou drew the main part of the day to a close.

GTSF had again provided a spectacularly iridescent day, mixing genres generously, entertaining several generations; that's no mean feat. And it's what makes this festival special: a top class, international musical journey right on our doorsteps.

We visited Gate To Southwell Festival on 5th July 2025. Keep an eye on the festival website for details of next year's event...

gtsf.uk