Well festival season is approaching once again, and I’m scrambling around wondering how I’m going to get to go to the festivals this year. I think I will be recycling for six hours a day at Glastonbury, serving drinks at the Isle of Wight festival, and hopefully drinking gin and being merry at Rob Da Bank’s Bestival, as long as I can still get a ticket of course.
I gave the Bestival a miss last year, because by the time I thought about buying a ticket they were all sold out and going for very large sums on Ebay. Then the weather reports rolled in, and all of a sudden the price of a Bestival ticket plummeted. By this stage I didn’t really feel like going anymore, despite the fact that I’d attended the previous three years. I heard from my friends that it was still pretty good, and I love Glastonbury for the mud, but the Bestival site is extremely badly suited to bad weather; essentially, a big bowl.
To be honest with you I’m not super-excited about the line-up. I have seen Kraftwerk’s lack of performance on television before, which might have been fun when they were fresh-faced kraut-robot-rock singers, but now they’re old. It just can’t be the same. Elbow and Doves might be pretty cool, and there are quite a few decent DJs to check out, but compared with previous year’s line-ups, it’s pretty damn weak.
One exciting development is ‘Island Day‘; a whole day of Isle of Wight music on the bandstand. I have seen some great Isle of Wight music in the past, from The Bees, to their side project Pnu Riff, to death-reggae sing-a-long singers Mista Mushroom, to the Motion Pictures. I even have fond memories of playing Bestival 2007 with my old band, I Love Audrey.
I don’t love all the music from the Isle of Wight, but there is some good stuff at Bestival this year. I’m looking forward to Mr Bump & Top Shelf’s dj set, Price dj set, who recently put out a record on the DPR label, and Hugo Frusslinky.
Jono from Hugo got in touch to play me their new EP, which is a banger by the way.
1. Fatty Boom Boom
2. Cowtown
The only reason I am attending the Isle of Wight festival is because The Pixies are playing, otherwise I would strongly reccomend anyone with a soul to steer well clear of this corporate event.
