WE are only a week away from the start of Oxfordshire’s biggest and best true rock festival of the summer.

The gates will be thrown open at Hill Farm, Steventon, next Thursday for the beginning of Truck Festival.

And this year’s extravaganza (which has a soft opening for special ticket holders on Thursday) promises to be the liveliest yet, with a headline set by local heroes Foals.

It will be the bands’s first homecoming show in more than five years and mark 12 years since they first played at Truck.

Also heading to Steventon are alternative-rock band Wolf Alice and indie giants Two Door Cinema Club.

Festival organiser Matt Harrap said: “We’re extremely excited by the artists this year.

“Having returning hometown heroes Foals is the icing on the cake; we’re over the moon to have them for their first Oxfordshire show in five years and their first at Truck since before their album Antidotes.”

Sharing their own excitement, the group, which is made up of Yannis Philippakis, Jack Bevan, Jimmy Smith and Edwin Congreave, said: “We’re coming home!”

Now international stars, Foals have headlined Reading and Bestival, played close to the to of the bill at Glastonbury, as well as winning several NME and Q Awards.

The first part of their long-awaited new album Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost was released earlier this year.

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Ahead of the official headline announcement in February, organisers put posters around Oxford with the festival’s logo and the words ‘They’re coming home’, leading to speculation over who the homegrown act could be.

In an unusual publicity move, organisers also scratched the names of some of the headliners onto potatoes, which were then posted out to media outlets, including the Features Desk of The Oxford Times

Matt said: “Having artists of the calibre of Two Door Cinema Club and Wolf Alice also coming to headline the event after many years of asking is truly humbling and their sets will no doubt live long in the memory.”

  • The Oxford Mail and The Oxford Times will be following all the action at Truck Festival next weekend.
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