Black Deer festival review: Newcomers hold their own against heavyweight headliners

(Black Deer Festival)

Pop stars will have you believe that country music is the hot new music trend of 2024. Between Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter, Zayn Malik’s Room Under the Stairs, and soon-to-be Lana Del Rey’s Lasso, it would seem as though “yeehaw season” is well and truly upon us.

For longtime UK fans of the genre, though, country music has been celebrated here for years. And that love is no more evident than here at Black Deer festival of country and Americana, where for three days amid the rolling fields of Eridge Park, Sussex, us Brits do our best to channel our neighbours from across the pond. This year, that extends to the weather, too: after an unseasonably chilly start to June, the sun comes out blazing in between the odd showery spell.

The smell of BBQ hangs thick in the air – because while music may be the main attraction, the vendors dish up delicacies worth mentioning, from Indian lamb burgers and hotdogs smothered in onions and mustard to woodfired pizza and sizzling Cajun shrimp.

The braver souls among us shovel red-hot chilli peppers into their mouths in front of a baying crowd (“Get that woman a bucket,” the alarmed host announces as one unfortunate contender retches). Guests wander between stages while perusing several stalls flogging Stetsons and hand-tooled cowboy boots. Elsewhere, I spy someone get thrown from a bucking bronco game before gamely clambering back on.

This year’s festival has broadened its lineup to incorporate a touch more rock and folk, while still staying true to its country roots. On Friday, Australia’s Courtney Barnett careens around the main stage, regaling fans with her lopsided drawl on songs such as “History Eraser” and the country-tinged “Rae Street”. Her voice turns gravelly on 2015’s “Small Poppies”, as she roars through a tempest of pounding drums and thrashing guitars.

Friday headliner Joe Bonamassa, undeniably one of the greatest living guitar players, takes us to church with his eclectic back catalogue of blues and soul-rock, while on Saturday, British duo The Shires play a golden hour of country-pop: delivering the spirited anthem “A Thousand Hallelujahs” and a pared-back duet of Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers’ “Islands in the Stream”.

Depending on your outlook, Black Deer’s mellow atmosphere is either a blessing or a curse. This is the kind of festival where ticketholders are happy to doze off in their camping chairs while being serenaded by the soulful croons of Brennen Leigh and Joshua Hedley. Only Falkirk five-piece Brògeal, with their heady Pogues-adjacent concoction of Scottish and Irish folk, indie and punk, seem to get any real rise out of their audience; during their Saturday performance of “Witchy Emerald Eyes”, a man in the crowd waves his crutch around enthusiastically above him.

There’s plenty more to discover beyond the line-up. Special mention to Jalen Ngonda, the Washington DC native with a honeyed falsetto reminiscent of the late Marvin Gaye. Now living in Liverpool, the musician, in his late twenties, gives a quite extraordinary performance on Saturday, his sound channelling the halcyon days of soul on songs such as “If You Don’t Want My Love”.

Folk artist Clara Mann enchants her audience at Haley’s Bar, singing in a diaphanous falsetto over arpeggiating piano notes, while Nottingham’s alt-country rockers Divorce are brilliant on songs such as recent single “Gears” and “Eat My Words”. Headliner Sheryl Crow seems unperturbed by the polite crowd, beaming as they sing along to her breakthrough 1993 slacker anthem “All I Wanna Do”.

Crow admires the British countryside, telling her audience: “I was looking out at the green fields and the sheep and I thought, I might just like to move here.” Real estate dreams aside, her setlist transports us right back to Missouri with her very first single “Run Baby Run” and its follow-up “Strong Enough”.

Guests continue to soak up the sun on the final day of the festival, where married couple Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal charm their audience with a sublime, sedate set of country standards and original songs. At 69, Cash is still an awe-inspiring performer, resplendent as she sings “A Feather’s Not a Bird” from her 2013 album, The River and The Thread. Beside her, Leventhal works in deft licks and grooves on his acoustic guitar.

English sisters The Staves, formerly a trio, now a duo, are magnificent during live airings of their 2024 album, All Now. “I’ll Never Leave You Alone”, with its plaintive harmonies, soft acoustic strums, and evocative, pastoral lyrics, is surely one of the best songs this year. It’s a testament to the festival’s reach for authenticity over commerciality that Black Deer is mercifully lacking in country bros machismo à la Luke Bryan – the closest we come is a Luke Combs tribute act. Praise the lawd.