After the unfortunate end of the Ramblin’ Man festival, which took place at the same venue, a three-year hiatus left a void that was finally filled in 2023 by the Maid of Stone Festival. This event once again turned Kent into the epicentre of the rock music scene for one weekend. This year’s Maid of Stone will be held from July 19th to 21st, 2024. Weekend, day, camping, VIP and children’s tickets are on sale now.
Maid of Stone is a three-day event, once again being staged in beautiful Mote Park, set smack bang in the middle of Kent, the Garden of England. The 2024 event, similar to last year, sees a line-up consisting of a mix of established names, rock legends and several young and emerging bands looking to carve out their own space in the rock world. While the main focus is rock music, other artists get a look-in .. in 2023 Southern rock’s Robert John & The Wreck plus blues lady Elles Bailey both strutted their stuff to great aplomb. The format is being repeated in 2024, with legendary act Living Colour, big names like Mr Big, Larkin Poe and Wolfmother plus several bands poised on the edge of making real names, such as Those Damn Crows and Black Roze.
Maid of Stone, similar to Ramblin’ Man, was never intended to be in direct competition with larger festivals like Download and Bloodstock. The biggest names in the rock firmament .. Kiss, Maiden, Priest, Slipknot, Aerosmith, etc .. are beyond the price range of this event. Instead, the aim was to focus on and provide a showcase of bands on the next level down in a slightly lower-key event, and in 2023 this worked really well and, despite the inclement weather .. rain all day Saturday .. everyone still had a blast with what was on offer.
Maid of Stone in 2023 continued almost seamlessly from where Ramblin’ Man left off, providing a whole range of bands and performers who provided great music and entertainment for those in attendance. This writer attended the inaugural event in 2023 and saw great sets from established acts like Glenn Hughes and Phil Campbell & the Bastard Sons, plus took the opportunity to catch several bands featured in ERB (Emerging Rock Bands) magazine, such as The Hot Damn!, Kira mac, Unknown Refuge and Haxan, and all gave good accounts of themselves.
For anyone thinking of attending this year, Mote Park is just over a mile from the J5 exit on the M20, and about one and a half miles from Maidstone town centre and Maidstone East station, with London being an hour away by train. Once onsite, there are all the usual facilities you’d expect at a festival, such as a great selection of foods, a good range of beers and spirits plus, for the bikers, a set-up from the local Harley Davidson dealership. Apparently, in 2023, there were several gripes about the VIP area but, not being a VIP, this wasn’t anything I noticed! What was noticeable, though, was a great vibe right across the weekend from fans clearly enjoying the event. One of the great things about Ramblin’ Man was the vibe from the fans, and Moteheads attending Maid of Stone showed this vibe still lives. Bring it on!
