THE WILDHEARTS - Time To Rock 2025 (Festival Blog)

**This is my story. My personal journal account of time at the festival, my thoughts and feelings. This is not a technical review of gigs, but more of a story telling my experiences and activities of attending Time To Rock Festival 2025. Hopefully, this will help inspire your attendance in 2026. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions.**

A few years back now, I was introduced by someone who was quite important to me, to The Wildhearts. While tragically we are no longer speaking, I am thankful for The Wildhearts. I’d known of them but never dove in until that point. I reviewed the Renaissance Men (THE WILDHEARTS – Renaissance Men) album in 2019 and saw the band live for the first time at Call Of The Wild the same year.

NEW BAND BUT STILL AWESOME

Now, the band no longer features the classic lineup from then, but basically frontman Ginger with new players backing him up. I had thought that Pontus Snibb from Bonafide was playing with them, but I didn’t see him on stage. Perhaps I did not read that news item somewhere afterall….lol. Today they opened with my favourite Wildhearts tune of “Suckerpunch” and so I was already happy capturing the stage action through my lens. Ginger sported a black t-shirt with “Flabbe” printed in white. I’m not sure what it was about, but I read it the way I read it. I feel ya, Ginger, I’m flabby too!

I disagree with the next song as I’m not a people fan and I don’t wanna go where they go. But I’m just a crotchety old man and what a great song. Ginger proclaimed that they “were feeling the love and we will give it all back to you today“. The next was introduced as “Troubadour Moon” from the new album, which I haven’t had the chance to explore as yet. After that, Ginger took a moment to tune his guitar. Ever the showman, he asked the audience, “Are there any guitar players here?” My buddy Per-Gustaf from the front row called out. And Ginger strummed a chord or two. “Is this in tune?” was the question. I’m not sure Per really knows, but I had a good laugh.

WHAT’S THE DIAGNOSIS, DOC?

“Diagnosis” came next and was simply rock n roll, absolutely thundering. We were told that this next one had tiny little Elvises in the video, so it might be weird without them as they launched into “Vanilla Radio“. I wasn’t all over the next song, I mean, the band was rocking with absolutely killer sound, but I can’t say I really knew the song at all. Ginger introduced the one after as “Eventually“, and it came along with more humorous anecdotes. This time, about urination of all things. He announced that he had to urinate, but then took a drink of water! “Drinking water when you already have to piss is living on the edge! This is rock n roll!” he proclaimed.

GO GARY, GO

“Sleepaway” was next on the order of things, but I also had some previous appointments to attend and had to work my way out during this song. Even though I had to depart before the end of the set, I was super grateful to be able to catch The Wildhearts. They were absolutely ripping on stage, the way real rock n’ roll should be! I did hear later on that, sometime towards the end of the set, Ginger remarked that he didn’t see many Wildhearts shirts in the crowd. Or something to that effect. My Scottish buddy, Gary, apparently made himself well-known, sporting a classic Wildhearts t-shirt. Atta boy, Gary!