Boomtown 2022 Line Up Confirmed!

Fern McErlane on 9 August 2022

On Sunday 7th August, after months of speculation and hype, heavyweight festival Boomtown finally announced its musical offerings for the year. As always, an eclectic mix of recognisable names and underground artists from a staggering range of genres will appear for “Chapter 1: The Gathering” from Wednesday 10th August.

Anticipation ran so high that Woov, the app through which Boomtown released their line up, immediately crashed for many users; organisers released an official apology, stating that “60,000 people tried to log on at exactly the same time and it just couldn’t quite cope.” 

Festival organisers chose to significantly delay line up announcements until mere days before the festival’s gates open. Fans debated potential headliners with anticipation, guessing that many that were previously confirmed for the 2020 show would be rolled over. Sadly, many have not; reactions to the final line-up have been mixed, particularly due to the limited number of larger artists, prompting an explanation on social media from Boomtown HQ:

“For those people who were expecting bigger headline artists, we really need to say this; when we relaunched chapter one and the new version of boomtown 2 years ago, we made it very clear that we did not want to dedicate such a large portion of the budget to three acts that sit on top of a poster.  Instead, we wanted to spread it across all areas that make boomtown unique, that was always our ethos, and we wanted to return to that.”

After taking a hit financially through event cancellations due to pandemic restrictions and lockdowns, the element of secrecy allowed them to avoid pricey bidding wars for larger artists. However, a fresh wave of musicians have joined the roster in place of established names. Festival-goers can expect to discover new favourites in up-and-coming bands, DJs and acts. 

Though most sets will be genre-blending spectacles, we’ve broken down the most notable appearances from each overarching genre, so that you can plan your weekend accordingly (and hopefully avoid dreaded clashes). The full lineup for Boomtown 2022 can be found on Woov, and on their website.

Drum & bass

Main stages: Origin, Wrong Side Of The Tracks, Dubtendo, The Jobcentre, The Inconvenience Store

Fans of one of Leeds’ favourite genres, drum & bass, will not be disappointed with this year’s artist selection. New main stage Origin seems the place to be for DNB across the weekend; 11pm Saturday, it hosts an act to certainly avoid missing – Dutch trio Noisia (who have confirmed that Boomtown 2022 will be their last ever UK performance), blending electro, bass and house.

DJ Marky, DJ Flight, General Levy, Harriet Jaxon, and Gryphon favourites Mungo’s Hi-Fi and Shy FX (ft. Stamina MC) will all make appearances. 

Inja, a big-name MC, will headline Origin stage at 6:30pm on Saturday, as well as joining Born On Road and a host of other drum and bass names for a set at the same stage later that night.

For those seeking a more underground DNB experience, queer collective Unorthodox will host a takeover set on Saturday; following this, head to mini-venue Postal Posse for late-night set from Physical Digital. Secret game-themed venue Dubtendo is also well worth a visit (if you can find it!)

Jungle

Main stages: Grand Central, Hidden Woods, Tangled Roots, Wrong Side Of The Tracks

Jungle is still massive at Boomtown. On Thursday night, Hidden Woods plays host to Scottish jungle DJ Mrs Magoo.

Head over to Hidden Woods or Tangled Roots on Friday night to catch Benny Page, Aries, or a takeover set from Jungle Cakes.

Saturday daytime at Grand Central, Fabio, Grooverider and an entire orchestra present ‘The history of jungle and drum & bass’ – sure to feature all your favourite tracks.

Concrete Junglists takeover Hidden Woods on Saturday night with an hours-long mega set featuring Something Something, Natty Lou, Charlie Tee, and Mollie Collins.

Dance and electronic

Main stages: Grand Central, Zenith

Grand Central is the place to be for a range of dance and electronic music across the weekend. Friday night sees Overmono, Squarepusher, Prospa, and DJ Tennis all taking the stage for hours of electronic delights. Following them on Saturday are Mall Grab B2B My Nu Leng, and Four Tet.

For dance music of every imaginable strain, visit Zenith on Saturday for a line-up impossible to sneer at: Partiboi69, Shy One, Dan Shake, Effy, Mella Dee, and Chaos in the CBD.

Techno

Main stages: Grand Central, Zenith

Though the techno line-up is less generous than previous years, Boomtown still provides some prominent names: catch Somniac One on Friday for hard techno sounds, Daniel Avery at Zenith that night, or heavyweight Nastia at 2:30am on Saturday at Grand Central.

Pop, R&B, funk and reggae

Main stages: Grand Central, The Vault

If hip-hop is your thing, be sure to catch Arrested Development, Kojey Radical, Black Josh, Mr Jukes and Barney Artist, or the legendary De La Soul complete with a ten-piece live band.

Pop artists gracing the stages this year include R&B-funk crowd-pleasers Kool & the Gang at 9:30pm Sunday, Grand Central. Self Esteem, Biig Piig, and ‘electro-pop-ghetto-funk’ performer Moonchild Sanelly all also have slots.

For reggae, see Julian Marley & The Uprising, or Jamaican reggae singer Koffee, both at Grand Central on Friday. Spoken word star Kae Tempest also returns to Boomtown this year.

Alternative music

Main stages: Hangar 161, Foggers Mill, The Flying Moustache

It’s impossible to ignore the blend of punk, rock, folk, and alternative music at Boomtown. Make sure to catch grime-punk acts Bob Vylan or PENGSHUi both on Friday, or alternative punk acts Nova Twins or Snapped Ankles.

For folksier sounds, see Holy Moly & The Crackers, Cam Cole, or Hak Baker; Reggae-punk band The Skints close the weekend at 1pm Sunday, Grand Central.

Dub and big band

Main stages: Grand Central, Engine House, Shamrock

Dub and big band acts of almost every musical strain can be found at Boomtown. We recommend seeing dub acts Gentlemans Dub Club and the Dub Pistols; for every kind of large-scale band, consider catching Cut Capers, Dutty Moonshine Band, Slamboree, Chainska Brassica, Molotov Jukebox, and Mad Caddies.

Other genres to note

Garage

Main stages: Jager Platz, The Jobcentre, The Grid

Disco

Main stages: Twisted Time Machine (Grand Central), Stiletto Disco, The Red Rash Inn, Copper Feel Cabaret

Afrobeats

Main stages: Obsidian, Samedia Shebeen

Dancehall

Main stages: Obsidian, Samedia Shebeen

Psy-trance and hi-tech

Main stages: Tangled Roots, Hidden Woods and Tribe of Frog

Breakcore, hardcore, acid

Main stages: Broken Core, Hitechnicians, Acid Leak

Dubstep

Main stages: Obsidian, Sub-Lab

All the big changes you’ll see at Boomtown 2022

Fern McErlane on 9 August 2022

Returning to Boomtown – three years on

A behemoth rave-come-theatrical-performance hybrid, Boomtown is an experience that’s not for the faint-hearted. When I was lucky enough to attend as a reporter back in 2019, I approached this festival with an equal amount of excitement and apprehension – and did not leave disappointed. The Boomtown team now make a long-awaited return to the Matterley Estate, Hampshire.

Facing lockdown restrictions and COVID knockbacks, Boomtown 2020 (titled “Chapter 12: New Beginnings”) was cancelled to mass dismay. After a significant gap filled with plotting and planning, the festival team have made the decision to return to ground zero (or one) for this year’s instalment: “Chapter 1: The Gathering”.

With each return to the festival grounds, an ever-evolving musical city is constructed for revellers to explore, with dozens of stages and bars – but also houses, shops, banks, schools, and even a job centre. It’s inhabited by a motley bunch of residents who wouldn’t break character if you pay them, although they might pay you (in drink tokens) if you’re game enough to play along. Interested yet? Read on.

Changing stages, changing places

One very notable change is Boomtown’s choice to completely rehaul their previous festival layout, with a whole new map recently released. It’s sure to confuse regular attendees and old hands slightly, but the festival will now be condensed into a smaller area of the Matterley bowl – meaning less time spent trekking from stage to stage.

New headline stages Grand Central and Origin are replacing the former four main stages (Town Centre, Nucleus, RELIC, and Lion’s Den); promising to offer heavyweight artist appearances sure to impress – the line-up for 2019 across big stages included The Streets, Lauryn Hill, and Slaves.

A host of familiar and fresh zones can be found in the city, from Copper County to Botanica, all with smaller stages promoting up-and-coming artists. The ever-popular forest parties will also continue this year, with areas such as Tribe of Frog and Tangled Roots offering psy-trance, reggae, rhythm, dub, and everything in between. It’s impossible not to mention Boomtown’s secret venues, only accessible for those in-the-know (Dubtendo in particular promises to be a hidden delight).

A sustainable city

Previous attendees will fondly recall the three-bin recycling system, the ban on single use plastics – and perhaps less fondly look back on those compost loos. The events team are pushing for this year to be more sustainable than ever, committing to reduce fuel emissions and their carbon footprint. Even new stage Origin will be constructed from ‘real plants’ and recycled materials from previous years’ constructions.

Emily Ford, Boomtown’s Sustainability Coordinator, said: “We’re well aware that festivals do have an environmental impact and can be carbon and waste intensive, but they can also provide the best testing ground for collaboration, creativity and innovation, with lots of exciting opportunities to reduce our impact. Our aim is to not only reduce impact, but to leave the area in a better state than when we found it.”

But who can we expect to play? 

Boomtown 2019 featured a line-up of genuinely baffling proportions – over 1000 artists playing across 38 stages, spanning all name-able music genres (and even some which haven’t yet been coined).

This year, however, has already proven to be different. The festival line-up has not yet been released – and will only be posted days before the event. Despite confusing attendees, it’s for good reason:

“The complex process of releasing a music line-up with exclusivity deals, billing and escalating costs have led us to decide that this is the time to rethink the way we approach it and explore new ways of doing things.”

By avoiding bidding wars with other festival organisers, Boomtown aims to bring a wave of fresh talent to their stages – artists that “change lives”, according to festival heads Kaptin Barrett and James Cousins. 

Make sure to look out for line-up announcements in the run up to Boomtown’s gates opening on 11th August 2022.

No thanks Estrid, we’ll reclaim our own body hair

Fern McErlane on 9 July 2021

‘Hey friend,’ the email read. ‘I’ve got a super-smooth surprise for you.’

It was from Estrid, one of the many ‘revolutionary’ feminine hair removal companies springing up recently. You may yourself have spotted their pastel-pink razors plastered across Instagram or creeping into your DMs.

The offending email was infantilising, playing on Gen-Z terminology to hook in a customer – “we’re like you!” the email screamed. Between liberal rainbow and heart emojis, they denoted themselves as a ‘female-first razor brand that celebrates inclusivity, body positivity, and equality’. They even offered a free razor, all for the low price of an #ad on your personal Instagram account. Now that all sounds good in theory, doesn’t it? But how exactly do they fit into a new era in which empowered personal choice shapes consumerism?

Image credit: Harper’s Bazaar 1922

Though body hair removal has been practiced by women for centuries, only more recently has it become a ‘necessity’ through social stigmatisation. The first female-specific razor was introduced to the market in 1915 by Gillette – the Milady Décolleté. Beneath this flowery name lay the new implication that body hair was unsanitary and unsightly, with shame functioning as a vehicle to further this new industry. Thus, the war against female body hair was born.

Feminine razor and hair removal companies have built their empire by creating a problem and inspiring insecurity. Women shouldn’t be hairy, they told us. Women should be smooth, sleek, sexual. This message stuck, for the most part, until very recently when self-empowerment and body positivity movements changed the game. Body hair removal brands now occupy an uncomfortable space, and have quickly changed tack, with new businesses bubbling up to fill the emergent market gap.

Image credit: Fern McErlane

Gillette now gleefully crows ‘Say pubic!’ on their social media, openly celebrating hair-down-there, and shares ‘feminist icon’ Ruth Bader-Ginsburg quotes. It’s a far cry from the ‘embarrassment’ of female body hair that they previously shilled. Estrid’s Instragram account is flush with carefully curated, aesthetically pleasing images, and memes likely created by an underpaid intern. They do raise valid points surrounding the necessity of vegan, cruelty-free, and sustainable products (something that in my opinion they should focus more upon). Yet, there is no admission from Gillette, or any other brand in the industry, of their part in creating the body hair stigma that they now “fight” against. In the era of real body positivity movements, it cloys of corporate desperation. More importantly, there is an unspoken unwillingness to take the blame. Should we let the same businesses that shamed and politicised our bodies now encourage us to choose for ourselves? It’s important to remember that as appealing these new brands may be, they’re not your friends. They’re selling you something, be it a product, or an idealised lifestyle (attainable only by using said product).

So, to these companies, my takeaway message is: back off. If we want to seek you out, we will. You don’t get to offer us a choice that was our own to make in the first place.

(But thanks for the free razor.)