Summer Well finds balance in a Brit-leaning lineup

The music scene itself typically struggles to break the larger realms of the UK and US for example, but neighbouring countries as far as France tend to pick up on their outputs. The country’s Latin influences are reflected in the majority of their festivals across the Latin, hip-hop and rap genres, with the popular Beach Please pulling in the likes of Anitta, Travis Scott, Ice Spice, and 6ix9ine. Summer Well then sits rather astutely as an outlier on the scene, and flies the flag for indie, alternative, pop, and rock music in the country.

The lineup for the 35,000 capacity festival is significantly British, with Arctic Monkeys and Florence + the Machine having topped the event in recent years. While 2024 brings a selection of acts with less dazzle, the festival has stayed true to its Anglophile leanings: Nothing But Thieves, Royal Blood, and Keane headline the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday respectively, and the roster of supporting acts includes Two Door Cinema Club, Joesef, and STONE. For the largely Romanian audience in attendance, this is the first time these bands have ever played for them – so if you’ve come to Romania to see the likes of INNA, you’ll have to think again.

The festival grounds sit across several acres of land belonging to an old stately home. In attendance alongside the home are a church and bell tower for good measure, all spread out across the forest and around a lake. It takes a good hour to circumnavigate the grounds at an exploratory pace, discovering pockets of entertainment as you go like miniature villages of communities coming together to meet, eat, party, play and dance. As you walk, it’s an effort to take it all in; there are endless DJ booths and dancefloors, an impressive variety of food trucks, games and activities, with relaxing spaces for yoga and jiu jitsu, and massive projections over the lake.

The main stage lies at the end of a wide avenue of trees while at the opposite end – with a face of lights split in half as its bordering pillars – stands the afterparty stage, a clever manoeuvre from the festival to ensure maximum retention as the headline act closes and the late-night sets begin. While Summer Well highlights foreign talent, it also shines a spotlight on its own, and the weekend’s selection of home-grown music consistently draws a large crowd, with the Sunset stage across the lake hosting local artists as well as the more electronic and hardcore names on the lineup.

The festival's opening day is somewhat of an introduction, easing in with both music and attendance. Footfall is low on the ground at first – as one would expect for a Friday afternoon – and Zimmer90 kick off the music with their palatable electronic indie. It’s an understated start to the weekend, and as Glasgow’s Joesef follows on the main stage to swoon and sway to his 50’s style of heartbreak, the modest crowd remains hesitant but willing to engage. This mellow, light, and rather accessible display of audio is less a bang and more of a crescendo – a dress rehearsal for the two days to follow.

Over on the Sunset stage, Romania’s Francis On My Mind brings her own take on electro-pop to the gathering crowd, singing in both Romanian and English to the delight of the out-of-towners in the audience. She keeps up with the introductory tone to the day as the first presence of pop in the festival, maintaining a level of intrigue without pushing the envelope too far on day one. Nothing But Thieves close out the day with a crowd so large for the Essex five-piece that you’d think it was the closing night. Conor Mason’s vocals shine through the multitude of speakers along the tree-lined avenue, and every fan in attendance sings along, not missing a beat, and taking every moment in. By now the pace has picked up from the afternoon's gentle breeze and the buzz for the next few days is palpable.

As a Brit, what’s most disconcerting about the festival at first is the presence of tobacco sponsors - and boy do they smoke a lot out here. Multiple outposts of cigarette dispensaries litter the grounds, and numerous camps of tobacco-sponsored marquees are found alongside DJs, dancefloors, and bars. A whopping 34 sponsors are partnered with the festival, with each trying to outdo the other: Persil has a foam area for children, CeraVe has a skin-scanning photobooth tent and E.On brings a bike-powered Scalextric race set.

As Friday turns to Saturday, many more people are in attendance for the weekend shift, and with that comes a crowd without hangovers from the previous day. Temperatures hits record highs for the afternoon as attendees mull across the lake and paddle board in the sun, and singer/songwriter Grandson floods onto the stage bringing his oddball brand to all who’ll listen. As his freak flag flies, we get soundbites of ‘love yourself’ Americanisms, but what feels like a genuine moment comes out as he speaks on addiction and hopes all who are struggling in the audience find peace.

Over on the Sunset stage, Romania’s latest offering comes in the form of +SHE+; a vampire-esque figure with long dark hair to her knees, adorned with two buff topless men with guitars on stage. She’s a popular figure in Romania, pairing a dark persona with sweetness, and her music remains in the deep vocal register as she keeps the tempo low and the moodiness high – quite a change of pace from any other act so far. Teezo Touchdown offers a similar shift, but not quite for the same reasons. The US rapper wields a microphone placed in a bouquet of flowers that obscures his face, and marches left to right alone on the giant stage trying to engage the crowd for fun back-and-forths, but they're not quite as familiar with his work and it’s a bit of a losing battle.

The day’s highlight isn’t the headline act, but Estonia’s Tommy Cash on the sunset stage. Forbidden to play his new (pornographic) video on the big screen, Cash still delivers visuals to be remembered as memes and other images flash across the stage for each hardcore electro song. His bunny-eared onesie fits like a glove as he twerks to the crowd, bopping to his tunes with bbno$ and similar collaborators, and his hype-man DJ exceeds expectations and not only hypes the crowd, but parties with them. Royal Blood then bring it back to the UK with their closing set on the main stage, saving the classics until last, and serving up a show that’s impressive despite their trademark minimal staging. Afterparty stages today are full to the brim, and the vibes match those levels for the DJ set from Måneskin's Victoria until the early hours.

On the festival's closing day, it certainly feels like we’re over the peak of the weekend. Liverpudlian four-piece STONE open to tired but willing numbers, and local favourite Paulina draws in a dedicated crowd at the Sunset stage for her folk-infused Romanian-pop. Two Door Cinema Club are the penultimate band on stage and tear through almost all of their 2010 debut Tourist History; the crowd probably hasn’t been so engaged all weekend as they are for these tunes. When technical difficulties temporarily plague the speakers they don’t even notice the crowd waving, shouting, and begging for them to restart.

“Everyone here smokes cigarettes,” laughs Keane’s Tom Chaplin, speaking on his culture shock. It’s a blessing he isn’t a smoker though, as he provides what is likely the best vocal performance in the festival’s lineup. Keane are an apt final headliner after Nothing But Thieves and Royal Blood, fitting in the mix with their dad-rock stylings that even your grandparents would appreciate.