Y Not? Festival 2026 day three after two fabulous days. The weather still glorious, and the gorgeous Peak District landscape looks stunning.
The Greenview Farm, Pikehall site will welcome 40,000 people daily capacity across the four days. The sold out 19th edition of Y Not?
This year the sparkling lineup was headlined by The Libertines on day one, The Reytons on Friday, Two Door Cinema Club today and The Streets will close the final day.
Saturday’s main stage headliners Two Door Cinema Club sees the stage production throwing back to a 1930s Art Deco vibe mixed with modern-day computer graphics.
The core of this five piece Northern Irish band has always been singer/guitarist/programmer Alex Trimble, guitarist/singer Sam Halliday and bassist/singer Kevin Baird. Trimble and Halliday met in school, and then hooked up with Baird through mutual friends. The trio began writing in Trimble’s parents garage and skipped going to university to focus on the band.
The band has just announced their first UK and Ireland tour in seven years. Celebrating 15 Years of their seminal debut album “Tourist History”, they will play five arenas in January 2027. The tour follows a landmark period for the band, including a headline New York show at famed Madison Square Garden, and a sold out show at London’s Crystal Palace Park to 25,000 fans.
2DCC, an excellent way to close Saturday at Y Not 2026 with a faultless headline set.
Time for the legendary Happy Mondays to grace the main stage with Bez, Shaun and the gang well up for it; with Bez’s wife Firouzeh Razav [now Mrs Berry] the newest member, replacing the iconic Rowetta when she quit the band, sharing the vocals with Shaun. “Kinky Afro” sounding mighty among a cracking set of songs.
Ricky Wilson and Kaiser Chiefs are the band for all seasons. Always bring their A Game and always deliver a sizzling live performance. Ricky’s profile boosted by his stint as a coach on The Voice, he is the perfect frontman. His high jumps, his rock and roll poses with the mic and mic stand – both of which he occasionally chucks in the air – and his likeability factor make for a visually appealing spectacle, and his vocals are always on-point too.
The Leeds lads pump up the crowd with a singalong to the Tom Robinson Band’s classic “2-4-6-8 Motorway” , and from the off with “The Factory Gates” the energy meter is on 11. “Are you ready”, he asks before they go into the hit “‘Everyday I Love You Less & Less”, the band’s third single and the opening track on their 2005 album “Unemployment”. Later in the set the crowd erupt to the raucous “I Predict A Riot”, also from their first album.
A young band currently rising to bigger things are Overpass, who rammed out The Quarry tent. Emerging as one of the most exciting homegrown act to come out of the midlands in over a decade, Overpass unite singer and guitarist Max, bass player Indie, guitarist Elliot and drummer Jake. The crowd at Y Not put smiles on the band’s faces by singing their songs back to them – loudly.
Their song “Union Station” won the biggest reaction. A shame someone decided in the crowd decided it a good idea to let off flares inside the tent. They are banned on site because of the drought and risk of wildfires, so that is bad enough, but inside a tent. So dangerous. The place was so packed the crowd was spilling outside the tent with some climbing the flagpoles outside for a better view. This band will play arenas in the future; sure of it.
The ever popular Scouting for Girls have an early main stage spot today and they are always value for money as a festival act, and draw big crowd of young and not so young. Roy Stride and his chaps consistently do a damn good job. Party time, singalong time, good fun and the crowd love ’em. The arena was packed, as Roy and co kick off with “Everyone Wants To Be On TV” and his usual schtick with the selfie stick, where he films to audience on his mobile.
During the first couple of songs the crowd’s jumping caused a cloud of dust to rise from the front rows, presumably from the bone dry ground. Formed in 2007, next year will be this band’s 20th anniversary, which Roy reminds the crowd and inviting everyone to turn up join in their celebrations.
Sunny Saturday is fancy dress day with a theme of well known TV shows. Lots of bonkers folk onsite who really went for it.
The Vaccines always deliver top end performances as a festival act or a headliner of their own gigs. No change here; they were superb. We caught them at Halo Festival in Ipswich in July and they were excellent; probably even topped that here. A lot of their fans here today, the crowd are well up for it as soon as the band kicked of with “Blow It Up” and straight into “Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra)”.
Frontman Justin Hayward-Young pauses to say hello to the crowd before song three “Post Break-Up Sex”, with lots of inflatables being passed around the crowd now, including a few blow up dolls! This band have achieved more than 800 million streams of their music and their live show is definitely as good as they sound in record.
The Clause on The Quarry stage get better all the time. The four-piece from Birmingham bring together the swagger of the 60s, the rolling groove of the 80s and the riotous verve and attitude of the 90s. Pearce Macca up front, Niall Fennell on drums, Jonny Fyffe on bass and Liam Deakin on guitar were bang on it; with epic singalong choruses that sound like they are destined for stadiums in the future. The lads have been together since they were kids and have matured into one of the UK’s most exciting new bands.
They started the set with “Nothing’s As It Seems”, with buckets of energy to a packed Quarry tent; the fans singing along loudly to “Tell Me What You Want”. When you tslk about a band owning a stage, this is that writ large.
Legendary Manc’ band (well, Oldham actually) Inspiral Carpets packed out the Giant Squid stage tent; probably helped by Ricky Wilson telling the main stage crowd to go and see them when his band had finished. Many did.
Still busy throughout even though they’re in competition with main stage headliners Two Door Cinema Club. Inspiral Carpets were formed by Graham Lambert and Stephen Holt in 1983, with the band named after a clothing shop on their Oldham estate. Still sounding relevant in 2026 43 years later.
Over on The Quarry stage The Rosadocs, the Sheffield five-piece alt rock/indie band this magazine first tipped in 2022, pulled a good number of people and delivered an impressive daytime set.
Check out our coverage of Thursday and Friday – Sunday coming soon…
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