It feels slightly strange to describe a 65,000-capacity festival as a ‘hidden gem’.
However, in the case of Southsea’s Victorious Festival, that might just be true. Tucked away on the South coast of England, the festival has spent the last thirteen years booking headliners like The Streets, Jamiroquai, Mumford & Sons, Paolo Nutini, Kasabian, and Stereophonics, and backing them with undercards that are stuffed fuller than your Dad’s stomach after Christmas dinner. And yet, strangely, it doesn’t seem to command the same respect as the Readings, Leeds, and Boardmasters of this world.
Frankly, dear reader, we’ve no idea why – because in our humble opinions, Victorious might just be one of the best festivals that this fair isle has to offer.
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Nestled on the stunning Southsea seafront, it’s a special kind of festival that can boast coastal views and a world-class musical line-up.
And yet, that’s exactly what you get with Victorious. Waves, sea views, and the occasionally bemused cruise ship float-by are par for the course, as are glorious landscapes and the kind of sunsets that might inspire a more skilled set of writers than ours to pen something mildly poetic.
It’s also packed full of more megastars than the toilets at a BRIT Awards afterparty. The likes of Louis Tomlinson, Courteeners, IDLES, Becky Hill, Wet Leg, James Bay, and Sugababes are more used to topping bills at festivals around the world than they are to playing second fiddle to another artist – and yet, at Victorious, they’re just a fraction of the attractions that are on offer throughout the afternoon before each day’s headliners take to the stage.
And as for those headliners? Well, let’s just say that any festival that manages to tempt Fatboy Slim, Snow Patrol, Jamie T, and a UK-exclusive set from Biffy Bloody Clyro along to headline is one that we’re likely to be big fans of.
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With a line-up this stacked, it’s going to be tricky for anyone to pick out their highlights from the 2024 edition.
However, to save you the hassle, we’re going to give it a go. Because we’re nice like that.
Firstly, an honourable mention must go to The Kooks, whose feel-good blend of indie, pop and rock is as safe a bet as you can get for a guaranteed great time at any given festival. And, in their role as Afternoon Special Guest on the Sunday, they did a frankly marvellous job of warming the crowd up for the day’s festivities. Indie disco classics were wheeled out at a frankly reckless rate,but it was their obligatory set closer, Naive, that truly brought the house down. If there was a roof over Southsea, it would’ve been blown off by the time the second verse hit – and if this nation’s powers-that-be are ever on the hunt for a new crowd-pleasing British national anthem, we think that The Kooks might just have a contender on their hands.
We also can’t help but to adore the recent renaissance of Natasha Bedingfield (ed. – Benaissance?). If anyone in attendance at her Sunday afternoon set wasn’t won over by her relentless enthusiasm, it was surely only a matter of time before they found themselves belting out the chorus of Unwritten with the kind of reckless enthusiasm that’s usually reserved for religious gatherings and the Next Boxing Day sale.
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And then, of course, we had our headliners.
An almost-too-good-to-be-true one-two of Snow Patrol and Fatboy Slim closed the Friday in epic style, proving beyond doubt that there’s no reason why melancholic stadium rock ballads and euphoric Nineties house bangers can’t happily coexist. On Saturday evening, we were met with the booze-ready indie of Jamie T. With him and The Streets’ Mike Skinner seemingly engaged in a constant battle for the title of ‘Poet Laureate of The Sesh’, Jamie delivered a relatively polished set of gritty guitar anthems and arena-sized choruses. It was loud, chaotic, and never anything less than entertaining; safe to say, we loved every moment.
But alas, the award for ‘set of the weekend’ must go to Biffy Clyro. Over the course of ninety glorious minutes, Simon Neil and co. proved beyond any reasonable doubt precisely why they’re one of the biggest bands in the country. Wheeling out bangers at a mildly alarming rate, and with little thought given to when exactly the crowd were supposed to catch their breath in between songs, the trio closed Victorious 2024 in epic style.
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So, dear reader, if you’ve ever been even half-tempted to spend an August Bank Holiday weekend at Victorious Festival, we think you should give it a shot.
After all, there’s not a lot to dislike. The location is fantastic, the food options are great, and the musical line-up is routinely amongst the strongest of the summer. And, if all else fails, you can find a quiet patch and see how many cruise ships you can spot by the end of the weekend’s festivities.