Punk bands with their punk vans at 2000trees

Imag­ine, if you will, a music fes­ti­val where the ​‘expe­ri­ence’ is sim­ply… live music. A fes­ti­val that goes beyond the mod­ern econ­o­my of yoga class­es, oxy­gen bars and axe throw­ing and sim­ply books a load of sick bands to play in a field for a laugh. That fes­ti­val is 2000trees.

Cre­at­ed in 2007 by six friends, 2000trees has been a bas­tion of inde­pen­dent music for 16 years. Book­ing the best new and estab­lished under­ground artists across pret­ty much every rock sub­genre you could think of, its fan-friend­ly, com­mu­ni­ty-first ethos has only grown more deter­mined with time, sit­ting in stark con­trast to the rapid cor­po­rati­sa­tion of live music at large and earn­ing it a rep­u­ta­tion as one of the best fes­ti­vals in the UK. As their man­i­festo proud­ly states: ​“Trees is more than an event. It’s a fam­i­ly gath­er­ing based on pos­i­tive com­mu­ni­ty val­ues.” As Huck proud­ly states: it bangs.

Held on Upcote Farm against the rolling Cotswold Hills, actu­al­ly get­ting to 2000trees is a delight­ful pil­grim­age in and of itself. Whether by bicy­cle, a beat-up Peu­geot 107 or a ful­ly-equipped tour bus, everyone’s got­ta get there by some mode of trans­port – the only dif­fer­ence for the artists play­ing is that, for bet­ter or worse, they’re prob­a­bly liv­ing in theirs.

After cap­tur­ing bands with their vans at Man­ches­ter Punk Fes­ti­val, Chris Bethell head­ed to this year’s 2000trees to pho­to­graph ZULU, Can­cer Bats, Witch Fever and more in the com­fort and chaos of their tem­po­rary homes on wheels.