Connect Festival Scotland 2007

So this is it the last festival of the summer and one i've been banging on about since April.

We set off on the Thursday and after a knackering 7 hour drive to the middle of nowhere we found we couldn't get into the festival site until the following morning! so we tried to set up camp in the carpark where we were rudely moved along. Fish and Chips, several pints and a few tequilas later in the weirdest little town ever (really pretty but weird, what town still has an apothecary??!!) we had no choice but to sleep in our cars in the pay and display car park! 7 tired people, 7 tired peoples worth of camping equipment, 2 cars, pouring with rain outside. It was a pretty miserable night!!! but we thought at least we'll beat the queue for the festival which in fairness we did.

A mile hike through several inches of mud later (carrying all our stuff i should add) we finally got our tents pitched in the least swamp like area we could find. We then bought a gazebo which proved to be the best purchase ever! Because of the weirdy organisedness of the festival the music had started by the time we'd set up our tents (no time for a well earned nap and beer!)

Despite this rocky of starts the festival turned out to be awesomely good fun, the mud got progressively worse over the weekend but we got used to the constant drizzle, put aside any ridiculous notions that our hair might look ok, and got to enjoy all the awesome bands that were on offer.

Highlights for me were Regina Spektor, Idlewild, Bjork, Rilo Kiley, Bat For Lashes, Modest Mouse, Beastie Boys, Jarvis Cocker and Tilly and the Wall.

The festival setting was beautiful, in the grounds of Inverary castle (the castle looked out over the main stage) and the food stalls were not your usual festival shite, There was fresh seafood from Loch Fyne (the mussels were AWESOME!, a Scottish Porridge Stall, Haggis, Neeps and Tatties and other local produce. The Red Bull Enchanted Forest was also a well fun place to hang out in between bands and chill out.

It was a glorious end to the festival season (although i never EVER want to drive for 7 and a half hours after a festival ever again!) but its all over now until next year, hopefull i'll find something else to amuse myself with so there will be some more news here one day!

Leeds Festival 2007

Ah Leeds Festival a.k.a Bramham Fest, i'm lucky enough to live in Bramham so am the proud reciever of guest tickets to the event every year!

This year the weather could not be faulted, it was boiling all weekend and not a drop of rain! Unfortunately i don't have many photos from leeds fest, the ones on my digital camera accidentally got deleted a week later and i didn't take my SLR in fear of theft! So all i have is what was on my really old little film camera.

Musical highlights include the welcome come back of Smashing Pumpkins who were awesome, I wish they'd closed the whole festival as the Chili Peppers were absolutely horrific, having seen them before a few years ago when they were good, i was really disapointed to close the festival listening to a band who had no interest in playing a festival set (ie. including all the songs that most people have paid to see, trying to get people who don't know the band very well to like them, general crowd interaction and most of all looking like you are enjoying yourself) Too much pointless (and seemingly endless) jamming and a lack lustre performance from Anthony Kiedis who even managed to get the words wrong for one of their famous songs (by the way) BAH but anyway i've talked about them for too long, lets just say they were crap and the sound tech didn't help.

But back to the good stuff! Nine Inch Nails were fantastic as were The Shins, Biffy Clyro, Grammatics, Sky Larkin, Jimmy Eat World and the Living End. In the comedy tent Simon Amstell was good but the highlight has to be Tim Minchin, australian musical comedian, check him out on you tube he is fantastic not just as a comic but as a musician too!

Boo to Leeds Festival for cramming another 20,000 people in over the weekend without seemingly providing any more space or facilities, the campsites were rammed, no room to walk between tents (although people still insisted on putting out guy ropes IT WASN'T WINDY OR RAINY!!! put them away guys we're not camping up Kilimanjaro, and it took about half an hour to get from the comedy tent to the main stage especially if you were heading away from a popular act!

Edinburgh Festival 2007

Went to the Edinburgh Festival for the weekend and had an AWESOME time. Highlight of the weekend was definately Nina Conti the best ventriloquist i have ever seen and ridiculously funny. Barry Cryer was also amazing like sitting and hearing your grandad telling funny stories round the dinner table!

Also really enjoyed a sketch show 3 piece called House of Windsor, they were the first act i saw and really set the weekend off to a good start with their surreal skits.

Keeping it Yorkshire we also saw the Leeds Tealights (to be honest we went just for the name!) five or six guys from Leeds Uni and their comedy revue, they had some really funny and original stuff and were full of energy, proper good fun!

Also saw a guy named Wil Hodgson who gave a really entertaining monologue about his life as an overweight punk who paints his nails to match his hair colour, collects my little ponies and has an obsession with fern britton!

Edinburgh is such a nice city (despite them bumping up all the prices over the festival) and i ate my first ever white pudding (which is well nice!!) from the best fish and chip shop in Scotland , the Anstruther Fish Bar.

As ever some of the most interesting parts of the day are spent walking up and down the royal mile getting mobbed by crazy fancy dress people with flyers!

Bloom Festival 2007

So we set off bright and early from London to get to Bath in time as Kid Id were playing the festival at 1.00 pm. We made it just in time for the boys to play to a practically empty tent! but the sun was shining and no one really cared, the tent did start to fill up towards the end of the set but most importantly those who were there were having fun!



We then had the rest of the weekend to enjoy the gorgeous weather and all the other bands and djs on offer. We also took part in the guinness world record attempt for biggest game of musical statues ever!!! which was broken hoorah!



Among the musical highlights were the beatboxing skills of beardyman who was absolutely phenomenal and also the dj/vj combo of coldcut on the main stage who were a feast for the senses.

Non musical highlight was getting to see the meteor shower away from all the light pollution of the big cities, i spent about an hour and a half lying outside in my sleeping bag staring at the sky until it started to rain and i had to hop it into the tent



The festival was awesome, not too big not too small and some great acts (and some not so great acts *ahem* Frank Sidebottom scary head man)

Monkey Chews Camden

Once again I found myself on the M1 Southbound and once again it was HORRIFIC!!! had to turn off at junction 5 after having been stuck in a jam for nearly an hour, then after finally finding our way to Camden i managed to perform the same circular manouevre at least 6 times before finally finding the venue (which i had even been to before) i've said it before and i'll say it again, i'm NEVER driving in London again! But anyway after some seriously dodgy parallel parking we finally arrived.

First on was Mr Dan Smith of Wimbledon, i'd never had the pleasure of seeing him live before and it certainly was worth waiting for. His one man show of many instrumented wonderment held the whole audiences rapt attention. Dan tops off his mix of quirky lyrics and interesting musical arrangements, revolving around keyboard with an added array of percussion, by using his loop pedal to build up tumultuous and rich backing to his vocals.





Next up were Kid Id who had the owners of the venue moving tables out so more people could fit in and dance. The room was packed and sweaty and the atmosphere was awesome. The six piece were kinda cramped in the tiny stage space but still managed to get their jig on!



Then we crashed at our mates house somewhere in London (i just followed the guys with the sat nav!) and tried to prepare ourselves for the drive to Bath the following morning for Bloom Fest (Big thanks to Laura the best hostess ever!!)

Moor Music Festival 2007

Now i've been looking forward to moor festival for months now with a great line-up made up of the best local acts around so i was hoping for a bit of sunshine but not even the constant drizzling could dampen the festival goers spirits.

the first tent we stumbled into was host to nu york state, a pretty fun souly, jamiroquai/maroon 5-esque (but better and less irritating) group with trumpet, sax, keyboard, african drums and the usual.



next up was rebel yell a cool as rockabilly group from leeds who put on a craking show despite being one member down



Next we saw Sky Larkin who were refreshingly lovely!


Shot at 2007-07-24

From here the line-up gets a bit blurry but somewhere along the way i finally got to see The Sugars who i've been trying to catch for a while now and i found their quirky stage presence and feet stompable sound highly entertaining


Shot with Canon EOS 350D DIGITAL at 2007-07-24

i do of course remember the last act of our evening the one and only Kid Id who played an awesome set that got the tent a rockin'



The next day saw The Tarka Groove Experiment getting everyone dancing their muddy little tootsies off.....



They were followed by the indie stylings of Bradfords White Light Parade.....



Then the highly vibrant electro sounds of The Hair who got the little tent rammed with heaving bodies



And finally the finale and musical highlight of the weekend was the one and only jon gomm and his amazing virtuoso guitar battering talents, i'm serious anyone who hasn't seen this guy and who gets the chance to has GOT to go watch he is literally the most mesmerising solo stage performer i've ever seen!



Other highlights of the weekend include the silent disco on the last night which was ridiculous amounts of fun (no camera to record the fun unfortunately!) Jumping around in the mud



singing copious amounts of bob dylan and making up songs about an elusive girl named elly



and these rather weird dancing foam creatures that mesmerised us for a few minutes!



Anyway this was the best festival of the summer so far i have high hopes for connect festival and i guess leeds will be a laugh cos it always is! This was a ridiculously long blog type thing but i took a lot of photos this weekend!!!

Emily

Another week another festival but this time the weather was a million times better, actual sunshine I kid you not! Had the privelege of access to an actual photography pit too. The Riverside festival wasn't anywhere near the hippy mud fest of Workhouse, it was more of a village fete gone large-scale but was really well organised and most people were pretty cool. Saw some really cool bands including Kid Id (ofcourse) but also an awesome local band called Point of Origin who got the acoustic tent shaking more than i'm certain it was designed to. Noteable events included returning to the car to find some chav had tagged the phrase 'Yes Boss' along the side of it but as it wasn't my car I found this pretty amusing. Lets hope the sun stays put for the rest of the summer and we can all frolic wildly in fields...... or sunbathe, whatever.

Workhouse Festival 2007

Workhouse Festival in *unpronouncable/memorable*, Wales was pretty awesome, only managed to go for the day and it was a sea of swampiness (see photos) but was a cool atmosphere and free food and cider is never a bad thing! took some more photos of Kid Id as they headlined the bar stage (see band photography). These small festivals are the way festivals should be, don't get me wrong leeds fest and the like are all well and good but lets face it they are a complete rip-off for both ticket prices and beer/food and everything is compromised by the sheer corporateness of it, smaller festivals have a much better atmosphere and fewer dickheads, but at the end of the day, i'll go to pretty much any festival i can afford, roll on moor fest, Leeds fest and connect fest!! Any suggestions of other cool festivals will be gladly accepted!!

Graduation!

i'm now definately no longer a student, no more NUS discount, no more being tutted at by people with real jobs, no more student loan and worst of all no more dossing!! rubbish! but graduation was a fun day, the stupid hats kept falling off and theres only so long the novelty of pretending you're in a Harry Potter film can endure but it was a good day none the less! Of course as the ceremony was situated in Preston it had to bloody rain....so much for my hopes of sunshine from here on out, lets hope it picks up for the weekend which i'm spending in London and then the sunbeams can increase their strength for next week when i'm heading to Newcastle and then Moor Festival in Ilkley which no amount of rain can ruin for me as the line up is awesome and its gonna be hella fun =D

So anyway congratulations to everyone who has graduated this summer and hope your scales are tipping away from depression and more towards mild optimism!!!