Ash and Supergrass to play Truck

By Tim Bearder
BBC Oxford

The festival organisers will be hoping for Summer sun as opposed to the major floods of 2007

Truck outstrips even the legendary Punt music festival in terms of its importance to the local music scene.

If you are in a local band you have to have played Truck to mean anything and if you are a fan of good music you have to have attended it at least once.

The old timers give it the highest accolade, classing it as a Glastonbury like it was back in the day: small, relaxed and where anything goes.

But in 2006 all that looked set to change.

The broadsheets and documentary crews descended on the little farm in Steventon, Mark Riley and the rest of the 6 Music crew had their outside broadcast van on location, and the sponsors looked set to take over.

KEY ACTS PLAYING IN 2009 Supergrass will headline the Truck Stage on Sunday night Ash will play the Truck Stage on Saturday night Yacht to play the Barn Stage in their only UK festival appearance Also confirmed: Red Light Company, Detroit Social Club, And So I Watch You From Afar, Pulled Apart By Horses, Calories, Data Select Party, Errors, Heloise And The Savoir Faire, Chew Lips, Sportsday Megaphone, Nervous Testpilot, Broken Records, Gary Louris & Mark Olson (The Jayhawks), Pete Molinari And Mike Heron and Georgia Seddon

But the crew behind Truck are made of firmer principles than those of the vast majority of promoters that steamroll into an idyllic rural spot, land a fleet of super-sized tour buses in the field and expect it to have a vibe.

They knew that what made their festival one of the best in the country was the fact that the local rotary club did the food stalls, that the vicar sold ice creams and the gate was only open to around 5000 of the most discerning music fans so that's what they held onto and they threw everything else out.

And now despite catastrophic floods wiping out one date in 2007 the festival has continued to become better if not bigger than ever. There will be a myriad of local bands across the weekend, in fact the festival has dedicated the whole of Sunday's main stage to Oxford based bands. 'Oxford Day' will include legend's like The Candyskins, Dive Dive, and Supergrass.

Another band worth catching up on are up and coming local act The Scholars. They won our Battle of the Bands event and now will play at the BBC Introducing stage at the festival.