Full Time for Full-Tone Festival 2023, Here’s to Next Year!

All images ©Gail Foster

It may be a wrap for another successful Full-Tone Festival in Devizes this bank holiday weekend, but talking to conductor Anthony Brown, seems like it’s full steam ahead for next year, with a few changes. With such a busy weekend in general, the one possibility I believe we can leak is it may not be on the same date, other than this you’ll have to wait to see!

And it was a busy weekend, alas I didn’t get the full-on Full-Tone experience I should’ve done and looking through Gail Foster’s awesome snaps today I see what I missed, including the wonderful Becky Lawrence who we absolutely love here at Devizine Towers. Fortunately, we do have some coverage, as our equally wonderful writer Helen Edwards dropped in on the Saturday, and then I made haste for the Green on Sunday, as soon as I washed the dishes, as is my part of the bargain with the very patient and understanding Mrs Devizine……

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Full-Tone Festival: Saturday: Helen Edwards

Day one at the festival was fantastic. When I arrived the magnificent Full-Tone Orchestra was in full swing with Jemma Brown (one of the key organisers of the festival) at the microphone – and what an incredible voice she has!

The vibes were chilled, and family focused, the food and drink options were varied and reasonably priced and the tunes were banging.  Perhaps that’s the wrong word for the earlier afternoon classical proms and TV & movie music but by the end of the evening the dance anthems were pumping out. The crowd in front of the huge Glastonbury-esque stage was thronging, glow sticks in hand with face glitter and fairy-light flower headbands adorned. Those festival goers not dancing were sat in their camping chairs chilling with mates or queuing for food, all bopping their heads to the music. All except those of school age. They were hanging with their friends, the older ones walking laps around the site enjoying the freedom and festival atmosphere.

I left before the end and saw that the entertainment and enjoyment on The Green had spread past the impenetrable, black sheeted fencing. There were many set up on the opposite side of the road with their blankets laid and tents erected enjoying the music from afar.

I got talking to people in the food and drinks queues to ask their thoughts about Devizes’ only two-day bank holiday festival.  I spoke to a couple who live locally and, also, a few who had travelled from neighbouring Calne, Trowbridge and Westbury to attend. Here’s a few of their comments:

‘I don’t enjoy the bigger festivals; there’s too many people and I feel overwhelmed. This is my second year here.  It’s got such a safe atmosphere and amazing and varied music’.

‘It’s brilliant! I can’t wait to get to the front and dance!’

‘It’s such a welcoming festival, everyone’s so friendly.’

The sound engineers got the balance spot on; the orchestra was majestic throughout, yet the singers’ voices were clear (and brilliant). If you’ve never heard a 50-piece orchestra playing modern music from the movies and TV through to dance anthems, then you’ve got to get to get yourself a ticket to Full-Tone’s next festival.

The people who put their efforts and passion into its success have given Devizes an annual festival to be proud of. It’s become an event that brings our community together, gives a phenomenal orchestral experience and makes the ‘what to do over bank holiday’ decision even harder!

The sound is unforgettable, the vibes are perfectly chilled and it’s a great value for money weekend.

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Full-Tone Festival: Sunday: Darren Worrow

Day two of the Full-Tone Festival here in Devizes, and I’m afraid they’ve got me rocking up this time around, the big bad editor to cast my beady eye on matters; it’s Sunday and I’m grouchy, God dammit!

Allow me thus, to summarise the magic with a story, as I annoyingly tend to do (what? It’s an age thing, you don’t gotta read it!) An anecdote which sees me front and centre absorbing those overwhelming acoustics, bumping into a friend Georgie Devon, who was looking stunning in black dress and glitter, causing me to wonder if she was up there singing on that magnificent stage, and I was right, she was, but I had no idea she could sing!

For Chris, Snedds, Titch and Jambo, aka the southwest’s champion indie-pop band, Talk in Code, they’ve arrived semi-fresh from the Victorious festival in Southsea, they’re no stranger to a stage, and naturally, they rocked it. For a smidgen over half-hour, they stole the stage, wowing an audience perhaps unaccustomed to festivals, least hoping for classic singalong covers, with their irresistible originals. Talk in Code don’t do covers, they’re an originals band, but both their catchy songs and energetic stage presence holds said audience spellbound, as if they got what they wanted. What I’m suggesting is you might well be induced into some John Hughes eighties soundtrack, for Talk in Code rinse in the retrospective charm of the era so much I find I liken them to bands like Simple Minds, rather than something contemporary.

Apt then, for them to be placed prior to a set by the orchestra and guest singers of eighties classic pop, which was both “rad” and “wicked,” in the eighties slang meanings of the words! Unlike you lucky lot, I had to work this morning, and had Heart’s Alone, perpetually looped in my head, a particularly adroitly performed cover amidst the many wonderful renditions of a very best of Now, That’s why I Call Music compilation; utterly brilliant, Full-Tone. I loved that song, and all the big-haired soft rock chicks; how would Heart get me alone? Well, they only had to ask!

Back to knowing those Talk in Code guys to seal my overall angle on this piece. It was a no-brainer their set would be this electric, but for the occasional and amateur singers, such as Georgie, the opportunity to deliver a song here on this now iconic stage for the town, amidst a full orchestra, is golden, not to mention the cherry on the cake as to why Full-Tone is so Devizes, and so magical.

Even when star in the making, Jess Self, gets up there, the thrill on her face says what I’m trying to convey, and this young star is accustomed to the stage. The ensemble of these musicians and performers is a monumental occasion for our humble market town. For those not from Devizes, or who hasn’t been to a Full-Tone, imagine, if you will, The Proms, mix it with Pete Tong’s Heritage Orchestra, add a spice of community festival, and stir in a pot of village fete.

Then some keyboard warrior goes on Facebook clutching at straws to find any minor issues to whinge about the event. “The least the orchestra could have done was to prevent the rain and stop the traffic,” I joked with chief organiser Jemma Brown, as the rant included the grass was wet and there was noise from the road!

The Full-Tone Orchestra can musically pull a rabbit from a hat, but they’re not gods! Just a collection of talented individuals, a majority of which are local, and the coming together on this scale, the logistics in organising it, the opportunities it provides, the attention to detail, from first aid to side stalls and from portaloos to one man standing conducting a variety packed programme for a full weekend is bonkers amazeballs, and to nitpick unavoidable paltry I can only imagine is based on pathetic jealousy.

“Here’s a man who needs his bed!” I guesstimated to conductor Anthony Brown as he approached to greet me. I had one question for him, as we stood next to this impressive stage surrounded by a mass of crowds clearly enjoying themselves without an inkling or care of online rants. The stage has become iconic, the event has become ingrained in just a few short years in our town’s culture, as I predicted after the inaugural one. The million-dollar question for him; where do you take this next?

Anthony elucidated it would continue annually but was keen to express there would be some changes. Yet what is important right now, Full-Tone this year was an extension of its previous success rate, it was spectacular on a level apt for a mass audience to enjoy and was a cherry on top of the cake already baked through previous years.

Unlike DOCA events it gets no arts grant, so it must put a price on it, and as we said prior, comparatively it’s reasonable. It is what it is, and I’m not going to suggest it’s everyone’s cuppa, even, but plonk yourself in the middle of it, witness those having fun or stand in awe of the talent and the acoustics they breath into it, and you cannot put a justified complaint in, impossible! Full-Tone works, and Full-Tone is enjoyed by the masses, masses which wouldn’t usually consider an orchestral occasion or festival, for this it is magical, and as Anthony hinted, here to stay; wonderful.

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