10 bands that prove 2000trees is hotbed of exciting new talent

You never meet anyone who’s lukewarm about 2000trees. There’s no other festival like it – how many festivals do you know with a stage in the woods, for instance? – whether that’s in terms of the friendly atmosphere, the short dashes between stages or the famously good food. (Yes, we’re still thinking about Bunnychow). It’s also one of the most family-friendly rock festivals about with a busy programme for kids and a lively tent for podcasts and comedy that’s ideal for a break between bands, or to enjoy while sipping your morning coffee in the hours before the music starts.

Appropriately for a festival surrounded by trees, the festival has a culture of planting seeds, musically speaking. They have a keen eye for booking new talent and nurturing it, bringing up the bands who deserve it by booking them again on bigger stages as the years go on. It’s why bands love Trees as much as Trees loves them, and it’s given rise to the phenomenon of the ‘Trees band’. Ask anecdotally and some beloved names will come up – Creeper, Nova Twins, Boston Manor, Holding Absence, VUKOVI, are just some prime examples, while unpeople and VOWER count among the new crop of Trees favourites.

But who will the bands of the future be? As ever, the groundwork will be laid in 2026 for a new generation of artists to draw in new fans down on Upcote Farm. Here are a few of our fresh picks to watch this year…

Love Rarely have courted plenty of not-inaccurate Rolo Tomassi comparisons, but there’s many more sides to them beyond their jangly, wonky time-signatured backbone. Theirs is an iridescent, slightly more emo take on math-rock that finds beauty in catharsis and healing in laying their hearts on the table. They’ll offer a stunning start to the festival for those pitching their tents early on Wednesday.

It’s never too early for a mosh-pit in the woods, as Hyphen’s turn in the Forest will surely prove. He’s pulling in plenty of admirers who are as up-in-arms about the hellfire of modern living as he is, and comes armed with incendiary rap-punk anthems filled with hard truths served straight from the freezer. Before you leave the wider world behind in the Trees bubble, let the anger spill.

Would you like something foul to headbang to while still digesting breakfast? Enter Long Goodbye. They’ve built up a vortex of word-of-mouth hype in the hardcore sphere for their cauterising, Converge-worshipping riffs and cranium-splintering screams, made for those who crave metalcore that sounds as rough and filthy as it did at the turn of the century. This is going to be nuts.

Glastonbury loved Native James so much last year he got an encore. The impact he could have at a more mosh-centric festival could be positively sizzling, thanks to the heavyweight power of his snarling grime-metal fusion, which brings the live fire to an even greater extent. We witnessed it ourselves on our stage at The Great Escape – tomorrow, Trees, next, world domination, perhaps?

There’s more to Twat Union than a funny name, but it also helps that this theatrical gang of London-based feminist punks have got both juicy riffs and bladder-busting hilarity. They’re packing songs about the drama of shagging on your period, contending with dodgy men, and risking a nip slip in a song that’s brilliantly titled Danger Boob. Come for a dance and giggle, because hearing a song about UTIs on the Trees main stage will be the thing you didn’t know you needed.

Bristol noiseniks Knives have an appetite for pure madness, but the fact they opened for The Callous Daoboys earlier this year can tell you that much. Bringing both bounce and barbed riff work (and perhaps, if you’re lucky, their unexpectedly genius cover of Kate Bush’s Babooshka), they’re a bunch of proper firestarters live.

Thick, scuzzy and discordant in sound, like Superheaven in darker, baggier clothes, Thistle. are picking up traction among listeners who crave sounds that feel beautifully scuffed and proudly imperfect. Sitting in the overlap between the Outbreak crowd and the Trees crowd, this is the moment where they could cement themselves as the next leaders of a new wave of grungy, atmospheric noisemakers. Worth getting down early for.

Frozemode are already earning their stripes at Trees, with two sets this weekend after they popped up to incite mayhem early on the Wednesday last year. They offer an adrenalised twist on the punkish energy that flows through the festival’s veins, weaving together explosive guitar-driven moments with grimy bravado. Save your energy for a mosh with this lot, yeah?

Imagine if Slipknot’s bloody birth took place in the modern Leeds hardcore scene and you get Bodyweb. In a starkly different vein from creative engine Louis Hardy’s day job with Higher Power (who are also playing Trees on the Friday), there’s a chilling, almost evil-sounding swagger to what they do, not to mention a feral thirst for violence, which has so far landed them support slots with Static Dress, Poison The Well and Speed. Time to see what the fuss is about.

High Regard have deep pride in their pop credentials, and they’ve certainly lit a fire under their stratospheric choruses, but there’s plenty to be said for their electrifying riffs too, and their daring will to embrace any sound under their umbrella. Soaked in all-consuming emotion and primed to feel like a whirlwind live, this could be something properly special.

2000trees takes place July 8 – 11 at Upcote Farm. Get your tickets now.