Dann and I have been going to more and more music festivals and food festivals that feature music in the last few years. One band that I have always wanted to see live is The Wombats, which are my current favorite. Dann is a big fan of Razorlight, so when the Hitchin Priory Summer Sessions listed a day with both Razorlight and The Wombats, there was no way we weren’t going to go. This three day long festival had different bands each day, but we went on the Saturday, which had the bands we were interested in. Dann and I invited our two friends, as a sort of double date, and headed off for the afternoon.
Food at Hitchin Priory Summer Sessions
When we arrived, we did want to eat some food before the bands we were interested in went on. From the afternoon, there was bands playing. We listened to Keyside while getting food and doing a little explore. Dann, myself, and our friend Liam grabbed some of the cocktails which are inside a pineapple. They didn’t have much liquid, as they are more of an Instagram, photo-feature, but are so cute. We then headed to the Airline Booth (which was wild to see) to grab some free coffee and cookies. When we were settled in, Emily grabbed a slushie, and we all grabbed food. I got sweet and sour chicken, which was decent for a food truck, and Dann got a Greek chicken dish. The food trucks at the Hitchin Priory Summer Sessions had a lot of traditional things; chips, chicken tenders, fried fish, burgers. Nothing fantastic, but lots of reasonable items to purchase.
Sunday (1994)
With fully bellies, we all headed to the front to listen to Sunday (1994), which none of us had heard of before. This is an English-American dream pop band that wrote a lot of their songs during Covid, uploading TikToks. They are fairly new, which probably explains why we hadn’t heard of them before. Sunday (1994) had softer, sleepy music and the main singer moved around the stage dancing. We did enjoy their music and felt like they were a good start to the evening.
Razorlight
Razorlight came on next, with a longer set then the last. They are an English indie rock band formed in 2002, that has gone through several line-up changes in their time, but have kept the same sort of vibe throughout. They closed out with their song America, which is often on the radio and one I knew all the words to! Dann describes them as an institution in music, one of those bands that almost everyone has heard, that really kickstarted the London indie scene. So it was fantastic to see them preform live.
The Wombats
The Wombats was who I was there for, and at this point, the place was PACKED. We were really right towards the front, so had a great view and weren’t so far back in the crowd. The Wombats are an English indie rock band that formed in 2003. They’ve released so much music, and I know the words to every single song they played. From the start, they played Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come, which was so funny as they were slightly delayed due to the rain. The actual set went on, with them playing their encore before announcing they were doing that, and continuing to play up until curfew. They did encourage a few mosh pits, which was a little scary to me, and at the end of the night gave out their drumsticks, which were bashed up, to a few select fans at the front (primarily younger ones!) which was really cool. They also played my favorite song, Lemon in a Knife Fight, and brought out people dressed as Wombats. It’s a fantastic thing to see live.
There were also merch stands which sold merch for The Wombats and a few of the other bands over the weekend. We did find it odd that Hitchin Priory Summer Sessions had a VIP ticket which was more money online than purchasing it at the venue, and the area that VIPs could go didn’t have a good view of the stage. The bands were fantastic, of course, but some aspects of running it weren’t so polished. The entrance was very far from the road and ticket booth, which really bottled up when we were all trying to leave. There also was lots of emails about no backpacks being allowed in, so we didn’t bring any, to find out that loads of people had brought backpacks! It was just a little odd and unorganised feeling, but the bands truly made up for it.
You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!