Photography: Green Day Live

If Friday had been about The Long Road Festival fighting the weather, Saturday began with everyone looking at the sky and wondering whether we were about to do the whole thing again. Unfortunately, we were.

Last year, The Long Road Festival takes place a week earlier in August and, had it done the same this year, Stanford Hall would probably have been basking in the heatwave temperatures and sun-scorched grass that have defined much of the British summer. But The Long Road has become synonymous with the August Bank Holiday weekend and, right on cue, as thousands of country fans begin arriving in Leicestershire, the heavens decide to open.

Cult favourites The Samurai Seven have made their long-awaited return with the release of their new EP Make It Real, marking the Oxford band’s first new release in almost 25 years.

The Great Emu War Casualties return with their brand new single Cold Food Ave, unveiling a rowdier side to their sound just months after the release of their debut album Public Sweetheart No. 1.

There is something wonderfully disarming about seeing Natalie Imbruglia on a stage this small. At The Circuit in Kingston, the singer-songwriter is close enough to her audience to make eye contact with people in the front row, close enough to laugh with them and, crucially, close enough for the nerves of the evening to be impossible to disguise.

EELS have shared their new track Congratulations To Me, offering another glimpse into their forthcoming 16th studio album, Cookie Happened, which arrives on 16th October via E Works / Play It Again Sam. The latest song finds E, the creative force behind EELS and the stage name of singer, songwriter and producer Mark Oliver Everett, looking at one of life’s more unexpected turning points: the moment when you finally realise that some things simply are not worth taking so seriously.

Liverpool alternative-pop artist Natalie McCool has dropped her new album Good For The Soul, marking a bold new chapter for an artist increasingly willing to push beyond the boundaries of conventional alternative pop. The new record arrives following a run of singles including Coming Of Age, We’re The Ones, So Lonely, Lonely and I Fantasise, each offering a glimpse into an album that refuses to settle into a single sound or mood.

JUNO Award-winning country artist Cameron Whitcomb is set to bring his electrifying live show to Europe and the UK in February 2027, announcing a run of dates in support of his breakout hit Kingdom Of Fear.