We Out Here Festival (Friday to Sunday)
20th-23rd August 2026
Wimborne St Giles, Dorset
Still a relatively new fixture on the summer festival calendar, We Out Here was so brilliantly put together that it felt like it had been there forever. Tom Parry joined the devotees in sun-dappled Dorset to revel in the sheer variety and non-stop good times at an event with a line-up quite unlike anything else on offer.
Within minutes of walking into the sumptuous site hosting the We Out Here festival, I knew I was in the right place. I had arrived much later than planned on the Friday, just in time for one of the acts I had been most eager to see – the Newcastle-based jazz outfit, Knats, a young group creating a stir and set for big things. The Tomorrow’s Warriors marquee in which they were playing was rammed, spilling out onto the parched fields outside, but everyone seemed happy to give way rather than preciously guarding their square-foot of turf and glaring at the pushy newcomer. Knats were absolutely compelling, sizzlingly-synced musicians full of youthful punky energy and brimming with ideas. They possessed a boisterous attitude too, a trait rarely associated with jazz, topped off with observational spoken-word narration from the back of the small stage that fused perfectly with the music. They smiled broadly, evidently delighted to be there, and the audience whooped back. This was how it would carry on over the three days I was at We Out Here, a festival at which the good vibes were never forced but totally natural.
Now in its seventh year, the Gilles Peterson-founded event has grown into a celebration of genres that, like all the best festivals, provides a kaleidoscope of attractive options day and night, from about midday through until 4am. Jazz, hip-hop, house, funk, drum and bass, soul, samba, dub reggae and the infinite permutations of scores of DJs are all encompassed across a dozen or so stages. The setting in the grounds of the St Giles House estate in Wimborne, Dorset, is absolutely stunning, and the festival’s organisers – with Peterson at the helm – have thought carefully about the best way to arrange the space. The three main late-night venues – The Bowl, a natural amphitheatre set in the woods, Rhythm Corner, an arena with a perimeter of stacked hay bales, and The Grove, a tucked-away tunnel of strobe-flashing wooden arches – are all a sufficient distance away from the main camping area for those wanting to sleep. Similarly, in the mornings, there was a queue for swimming and paddleboarding on the lake, as well as yoga and meditation in the shade. There was even a football pitch. They had thought of everything, for dedicated clubbers and families with young kids alike.
Back to the music. After Knats, I spent half an hour or so watching the main stage headliner, Thundercat. I couldn’t say there was anything specifically wrong with the performance, but sometimes it strayed towards bland. After the thrill of Knats, there was far too much between Thundercat’s extraordinary guitar solos that was too insipid for the main act. I drifted off to several of the main dance areas, where DJs including the American house music legend Kenny Dope enthralled.
Saturday started with something else arrestingly brilliant: Brazilian pianist Amaro Freitas. Accompanied only by a bass player and drummer, both of whom were outstanding, this was the kind of perfect surprise that the best festivals can unfurl: an act I had never come across blowing my mind before I was awake enough to fully comprehend how technically brilliant but irrepressibly exuberant these three musicians were. A highlight so good that I would have been content if that had been the only thing I saw all day.
Next on the main stage was Momoko Gill, another artist I was only vaguely aware of beforehand. This was elegant, poised jazz, with Momoko herself impressive on drums and lead vocals, but it was not passionate enough to fill the field. I drifted to the other main outdoor stage, Lush Life (a gentle few minutes’ walk away), to be confronted by the far more startling, effervescent and life-affirming sound of Steam Down. This was a band that knew exactly how to work the crowd. They were amazing, blowing holes through genres, another highlight.
Throughout the festival, I was seesawing between moments of completely absorbing, incessant, full-on musical energy and gentler or more experimental jazz that did not quite reach the heights. It was never a problem, because there was always something else great to see if the music needed lifting, but there was definitely a contradiction between those artists that were perfectly suited to a festival site and those that might have been better heard in a smaller club with perfect acoustics. The next two I saw embodied the wandering compass needle of We Out Here. On the main stage, Jazzanova, a German nu-jazz collective formed in the 90s, felt sluggish in the late afternoon sunshine. Later, Arthur Verocai, the 81-year-old Brazilian composer, came out to conduct the Nu Civilisation Orchestra. Here, we were in the presence of greatness, but there was too much going on around me, too much chatter, to really be taken by music which needs to be listened to without disturbance. No such problem with the stupendously brilliant rapper Kofi Stone, who delivered banger after banger, wowing with his lightning-quick delivery.
Sunday followed a similar pattern. Joshua Idehen’s set was completely joyous, like an unhinged evangelist preacher providing his heathen congregation with beautiful feelings for each other for the rest of the day – with a bit of sharp social commentary mixed in for good effect. Shabaka, one of the giants of the current UK jazz boom, who gained his formidable reputation with his mesmerising bands Sons of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming, was doing a more reflective set in which he mostly played Japanese flute. Again, in a different setting, I’m sure it would have been transcendent, but in the glorious sunshine, surrounded by slightly wasted people, it was a strain to concentrate. My festival ended with a cocktail intertwining completely different artists, the epitome of We Out Here’s eclectic musical menu. Stereolab, as close to a conventional indie band as I saw all weekend, were sometimes obtuse and sometimes pulsating. I then joined thousands of elated ravers for Four Tet’s surprise set, which was mind-blowing, breaking off briefly to wander to the main stage where Gary Bartz, an 85-year-old saxophonist who once played with Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and Art Blakey, was beguiling a far smaller audience in the darkness. It seemed like the perfect way to close out a beautiful, feel-good festival I would definitely return to.
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Words by Tom Parry; you can find his author’s archive here, plus on Twitter and his website
Photos as indicated, supplied
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