Kendal Calling Festival 2026, Lowther Deer Park - Day Three - Saturday 1st August

Rising young guitar bands, folk-fuelled madness and a monumental firestarting Biffy 'F**king' Clyro headline set - makes Saturday Kendal’s loudest day yet.

Words and Photography - John Hayhurst

Friday had taken Kendal Calling through almost every possible shade of festival life. Rianne Downey brought grace to the Main Stage before Black Honey sharpened the mood, Brooki announced themselves at Calling Out and Lottery Winners attempted—with very limited success—to hide behind The Kokos. The Vaccines supplied the indie rush, Scissor Sisters unleashed a riot of disco flamboyance and Two Door Cinema Club headlined the Main Stage and Moonlandingz dragged Woodlands into a brilliantly warped world of psychedelic electronics and interplanetary sleaze.

By Saturday morning, the tired faces emerging from The Shire suggest that Kendal Calling is beginning to take its toll—but the busiest day of the weekend leaves no time for recovery.

Swim School are handed the job of waking the Main Stage, and the Edinburgh band approach it with considerably more energy than most of the campsite can currently muster. Led by Alice Johnson, their sound balances shimmering dream-pop textures with guitars capable of suddenly turning abrasive and loud.

‘Heaven’ and ‘BORED’ demonstrate both sides of that equation, while ‘Alone With You’ and ‘Let Me Inside Your Head’ carry the emotional weight beneath the distortion. It is a bright but bruised opening—music that can drift across a field one moment and hit with real force the next.

Freddie Halkon steps onto the Main Stage for the first time and looks impressively at home there. The South Yorkshire singer-songwriter combines grounded storytelling with the kind of anthemic indie choruses built to travel across an open field, turning songs such as ‘Girl in the Smoking Area’, ‘Come Around Again’ and ‘Only Got Each Other’ into warm communal moments.

There is humour and everyday familiarity in the newer ‘Chinese Takeaway’, while ‘Shoulders of the World’ reveals the more heartfelt side of Halkon’s writing. Having progressed from local stages and support slots with The Reytons to Kendal Calling’s biggest platform, this feels like an important step forward—and the confident reception suggests it will not be his last appearance on a stage of this size.

Calling Out then begins a run of new guitar music with Fletchr Fletchr. Rohan Fletcher fronts the Cornwall-based four-piece alongside Adam Sanders, Oli Williams and George Green, delivering heartfelt indie rock constructed around anxiety, connection and the messy business of growing up.

‘Streetlights’ brings a widescreen glow, while ‘Fxxking With My Head’ and ‘Blink of an Eye’ add sharper edges and soaring choruses. Calling Out may be smaller than the Main Stage, but Fletchr Fletchr play as if they are already preparing for spaces several times its size.

The Hunna bring a surge of arena-sized indie rock to the Main Stage, with frontman Ryan Potter leading the charge through the urgent ‘I Wanna Know’, ‘We Could Be’ and ‘Bad for You’. Dan Dorney’s soaring guitar work gives the songs their widescreen scale, while Junate Angin and Jack Metcalfe drive them forward with the force required to reach the far edges of the field.

‘She’s Casual’ provides the emotional singalong before ‘Bonfire’ sends the crowd into one final eruption. With the band preparing to bring this chapter of their career to an end, the performance carries an additional poignancy: a reminder of how naturally The Hunna’s huge choruses belong on festival stages.

Bleech 9:3 then provide one of Saturday’s most eagerly anticipated Calling Out performances. Frontman Barry Quinlan, guitarist Sam Duffy, bassist James Quinlan and drummer Luke O’Neill channel intensely personal experiences into music that is raw, bruising and ultimately hopeful.

‘Ceiling’ builds from vulnerability into a towering release, while ‘Jacky’, ‘No Surprise’ and ‘Cannonball’ combine grunge-heavy guitars with Barry’s impassioned vocals. Their songs deal openly with addiction, recovery and starting again, but this never feels like pain being used for decoration. Every eruption carries the force of something survived.

In the close confines of Calling Out, that honesty lands hard. Bleech 9:3 have already been generating serious momentum, but this feels like the kind of festival performance people will later claim they witnessed just before the band became impossible to see in a venue this size.

Gabrielle brings a completely different kind of emotional release to the Main Stage. Her voice remains warm, distinctive and immediately recognisable, drawing the afternoon crowd into a catalogue that has soundtracked heartbreak, resilience and fresh starts for more than three decades.

‘Give Me a Little More Time’ and ‘Sunshine’ loosen the mood before ‘Out of Reach’ inspires a field-wide chorus. Then comes ‘Rise’, carrying its familiar combination of melancholy and defiance, followed by ‘Dreams’—still capable of lifting an audience from its opening moments. Gabrielle does not need spectacle to command the field; the songs and that unmistakable voice are more than enough.

Pastel fill the Calling Out tent with a dense, swirling wall of sound, their shoegaze atmospherics colliding with the swagger of classic British guitar music. Frontman Jack Yates’ vocals drift through layers of distortion as James Yates and Joe Anderson build shimmering guitar textures over Liam O’Shea’s bass and Rhys Wheeler’s driving drums. Beneath the stage’s intricate canopy, ‘Your Day’, ‘Running on Empty’ and ‘Dancing on a Pin’ feel hypnotic and huge.

Drawing from debut album Souls in Motion, the band create something immersive rather than merely loud—a performance that envelops Calling Out and briefly makes the world beyond the tent disappear.

Jamie Webster’s arrival on the Main Stage transforms the field into something resembling a massed community choir. The Liverpool singer-songwriter’s songs are built around identity and working-class experience, but their real power comes from the way audiences take ownership of them.

‘Voice of the Voiceless’ and ‘Something’s Gotta Give’ carry conviction without becoming empty slogans, while ‘Weekend in Paradise’ feels especially appropriate in the middle of Kendal Calling. ‘This Place’ prompts arms around shoulders, but ‘We Get By’ provides the defining moment—a song about solidarity sung back by thousands of people who, for a few minutes, appear to mean every word together.

From there, it is back to Calling Out for Brògeal, whose folk-rock feels ready-made for a festival crowd several drinks into Saturday. The Falkirk band combine traditional instrumentation with youthful indie energy, creating songs that can move from storytelling to full-throttle celebration without warning.

‘Roving Falkirk Bairn’ and ‘One for the Ditch’ carry the atmosphere of a packed pub session that has escaped into a festival tent, while ‘Girl from NYC’ and ‘Tuesday Paper Club’ add melody and modern bite. By the time ‘Lonesome Boatman’ appears, Calling Out feels like a particularly unruly gathering of old friends in a Scottish late night bar.

Ellur brings emotionally charged indie pop to the secluded Woodlands stage, where her soaring voice and candid storytelling feel perfectly suited to the intimate surroundings. The Halifax singer-songwriter moves between vulnerability and release, with ‘Missing Kid’, ‘The World Is Not an Oyster’ and ‘God Help Me Now’ transforming private anxieties into expansive guitar anthems.

Drawing heavily from debut album At Home in My Mind, songs such as ‘Dream of Mine’ reveal a performer growing increasingly confident without sacrificing the honesty at the centre of her writing. With the trees enclosing the crowd and the evening beginning to settle over Lowther Deer Park, Ellur creates one of those quietly affecting festival moments that rewards anyone willing to wander away from the larger stages.

Manchester four-piece Arkayla follow with chiming guitars, tight harmonies and the kind of assured indie songwriting that carries traces of their city’s musical heritage without becoming trapped beneath it. Cal Blakebrough commands the centre alongside guitarist Finley Rubens, bassist Theo Savage and drummer Patrick Hanbury, with ‘Lost in a Valentine’, ‘Ella Malone’ and ‘Fortune Teller’ filling the Calling Out tent with melody and swagger.

‘Doctor’ and ‘Take the Cash’ add grit, but it is the surging ‘Run Kid’ that provides the defining release, its chorus greeted with the enthusiasm of a song already becoming a festival favourite. Beneath Calling Out’s western canopy, Arkayla look and sound ready to move beyond rising-band status—the only surprise is how long stages of this size will be able to contain them.

The Libertines take the Main Stage as daylight begins to fade, bringing a beautifully ragged counterpoint to the precision and scale of the headline production still to come. Pete Doherty and Carl Barât share vocals and microphones with their familiar frayed chemistry, while John Hassall and Gary Powell hold everything together beneath them. ‘The Delaney’, ‘Boys in the Band’ and ‘What Katie Did’ tumble forward with the sense that the songs could unravel at any moment—yet somehow become more thrilling because they never do.

‘Music When the Lights Go Out’ brings a moment of bruised romanticism while ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’, ‘Time for Heroes’ and ‘Don’t Look Back into the Sun’ ignite huge singalongs across the field. The Libertines may not possess Biffy Clyro’s monumental production, but their chaos, camaraderie and collection of era-defining indie anthems make them the ideal final act before the main stage headliners: gloriously imperfect and unmistakably alive.

The Twang continue that communal spirit at Parklands, armed with songs deeply embedded in Britain’s mid-2000s indie memory. Phil Etheridge and Martin Saunders remain natural conductors of a crowd, mixing Brummie humour, spoken-word swagger and choruses built to be shouted rather than delicately sung.

‘Barney Rubble’ and ‘Wide Awake’ bring the bounce, but ‘Either Way’ delivers the inevitable mass embrace. It is part love song, part festival ritual—one of those tracks that seems to gain emotional weight whenever several thousand slightly hoarse people sing it together.

Then comes the decision that has been hanging over the entire day: Biffy Clyro or KEO.

KEO are one of Britain’s most exciting emerging guitar bands, and their headline appearance at Calling Out promises the intensity of watching something explode at close quarters. But having caught them at Tramlines only last weekend, the choice is finally made.

Tonight belongs to Biffy Clyro.

As the lights fall over the Main Stage, any lingering uncertainty quickly disappears.

Simon Neil leads Biffy into a set of colossal riffs, sudden rhythmic turns and choruses built to reach the furthest edges of Lowther Deer Park. Ben Johnston’s drumming drives the songs with astonishing force, while the performance balances the band’s renewed energy with the emotional weight surrounding this chapter of their career.

Newer material from Futique earns its place immediately. ‘A Little Love’ brings melody and momentum, while ‘Hunting Season’ and ‘Goodbye’ demonstrate a band still looking forward rather than simply touring their history.

Surprise of the night though when Simon Neil pulls out a flame thrower for 'Who's Got A Match' - "I'm a fire and I'll burn burn burn tonight" rings around the hills as Neil proceeds to literally set fire to the place. Biffy clearly remain restless even at festival-headliner level.

Yet Biffy Clyro have always been as effective in their quieter moments as they are at maximum volume. ‘Machines’ strips away the noise and exposes the vulnerability at the centre of Simon Neil’s songwriting, creating a moment of stillness before the set climbs once more.

‘Bubbles’ erupts in a final storm of guitars, but ‘Many of Horror’ provides the emotional release. Its words are returned to the stage by a crowd that seems to stretch into the darkness, closing the night with voices, lights, fireworks and arms raised across the field. Choosing Biffy means missing KEO, but as the final chorus rolls towards the hills, regret is nowhere to be found.

Three days in, the legs are aching, the voice is failing and the campsite has reached a level of disorder that no longer seems reversible. There is only one full day of Kendal Calling left—but Sunday, with the likes of last weekend's Tramlines highlight 'Girl In The Year Above', and later Primal Scream and Wolf Alice, is not preparing to let the weekend disappear quietly.