It is more and more onerous to be each an indie rock band and new mother and father amid the continuing collapse of lots of the establishments that after supported each of these enterprises. The married British musicians Chloe Little and James Taylor (not that James Taylor) are attempting to do each on the similar time. They’re the mother and father of an toddler who’s only some months outdated, they usually make music collectively as Wings Of Want. Final weekend, their band was booked to play a competition referred to as Valley Fest, outdoors Bristol, in order that they packed up their child and Little’s mom, who got here alongside for childcare, and drove for hours earlier than discovering out that the stage they’d been booked to play did not exist.
Valley Fest went down this previous weekend, with the bands Large Particular, Pleasant Fires, and Forged headlining. By their agent, Wings Of Want have been booked to play the competition’s Yard Stage again in February. Once they arrived on the fest, although, they discovered that they’d been moved to a special stage. They wandered round, unsuccessfully looking for that stage, and the band and their agent’s calls to bookers went unanswered. They by no means ended up enjoying the competition, they usually posted about their expertise on Instagram:
Stroll round with all our gear + child, use the pram as a trolly, get turned away from each tent. The variety of the manufacturing contact now we have retains going to a Giff Gaff voicemail.
Lastly arrive on the notorious not-on-the-site-map stage that we’re booked to play, a PowerPoint presentation about property growth is happening.
The curator of the stage confirms he hadn’t booked us and the lineup had been in place for months. He tells us of a very good place in Ecuador to purchase frankincense.
Child is crying, wants feeding. All of us want feeding. Fortunately now we have a meal ticket we are able to use at one of many meals vans. We anticipate a name that doesn’t come. Again to the automobile, pack up the stuff, nappy change on the again seat, extra tears, drive 2 hours residence.
Sounds extraordinarily shitty! The band says that they shared the story as “a stunning instance of how the music business treats artists.” After that Instagram put up, Wings Of Want member Chloe Little spoke to the BBC, saying, “We did not find yourself enjoying our set, that is by no means occurred to us earlier than… We’re used to no dressing room, however there was nowhere to go together with the infant, and that added to the stress.”
In response, competition founder Luke Hasell instructed the BBC that he was “actually sorry to listen to about Wings Of Want’s expertise.” He went on:
Forward of the competition, we made the choice to merge the Yard Stage with one other venue, with artists on account of carry out there being reprogrammed throughout the weekend.
Sadly, it seems there was a breakdown in communication round Wings Of Want’s efficiency, which meant they weren’t given the knowledge they wanted forward of arriving on website…
We’ll be reaching out to the band’s administration to apologize, higher perceive their expertise and ensure this does not occur once more.
In a follow-up Instagram put up, Wings Of Want say, “We’ve in fact heard nothing from them and haven’t been compensated. We don’t recognize being gaslit into being instructed it was a miscommunication. We’ve all of the receipts.”
Wings Of Want are presently releasing a brand new tune throughout each new moon of the 2026 lunar calendar. “The Manner You Really feel,” their most up-to-date single, got here out final month.
