Latest Blogs
How to festival with a conscience: Glastonbury special
By DanVF
on
26 June 2011
There is a certain peace to Glastonbury’s Green Fields. A quiet and relaxed nirvana of overhanging trees, people-powered
soundsystems and enough positive karma to get the whole of Odd Future into heaven.It’s here that we wind through bloo...
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Stagg dos and don'ts: a response to the Telegraph's festival tips
By DanVF
on
17 June 2011
“Who?” you may cry! Why, he’s the author of the Top ten festival tips article in the Telegraph; a real outdoor
warrior, last spotted at Glasto ’71 with Ray Mears as they put together a makeshift tent with just disused burger b...
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BLOG: About grime too! UK rap gets whole stage at Glastonbury
By DanVF
on
14 April 2011
Thank mud for Glastonbury! After glancing over the 2011 line-up, it deserves every column-inched, keyboard-tapped kernel of
praise it’s garnered with this summer. Far from the tired (and over-tested) formula of other events that glare at divers...
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BLOG: Bestival 2011: a mind-boggling bill of brilliance
By DanVF
on
22 March 2011
With all the hot air surrounding the Reading and Leeds line-ups producing enough vitriol vapour on internet messageboards
to steam up Melvin Benn’s glasses, people may have missed one of the best and most eclectic line-up announcements of
the s...
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Why I love... The Streets
By DanVF
on
09 February 2011
Why does every Valentine’s Day have to end with heartbreak? When the office decided to write a blog on the bands, festivals
or songs we love, to give you an idea about the people behind the site, it could have been anything (see what Chris Swin...
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When did BBC Electric Proms lose its edge?
By DanVF
on
23 September 2010
What’s happened to the BBC Electric Proms then? It once sat at the end of the festival season as an exciting Indian
summer soiree, bringing together the great and good from the contemporary scene, forcing them to rethink and remould their
great...
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Are you impressed by the Reading and Leeds' line up?
By DanVF
on
30 March 2010
YES says Tom GoodwynReading/Leeds always have problems getting their line-ups right. They can’t afford to overly mainstream,
else they run the risk of heading into V Festival territory and upsetting their core fan base of alternative rockers. B...
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Are V Festival line-ups becoming too predictable?
By DanVF
on
03 March 2010
Yes argues Hollie GarrawayV has always been the most diluted festival of the summer. It's where history is rarely made
and The Saturdays make a cameo backstage in designer wellies, rubbing shoulders with Z-listers from Hollyoaks. Bottom line:
it&...
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Reaction: This is it! The Strokes will headline Rock Ness
By DanVF
on
02 December 2009
The one announcement I wasn’t expecting to hear when I came into work this morning was The Strokes confirmed to headline
Rock Ness.Muse for Glastonbury? Sure. Guns N’ Roses at Download? Quite possibly. But the New York garage rockers on
t...
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U2 if you want to, but I'll be elsewhere...
By DanVF
on
02 December 2009
It is somewhat apt that U2 have been chosen to headline the 40th edition of the Glastonbury Festival: they’re the middle
of the road, middle-aged band for an event that, in human years at least, is reaching the same milestone. For Team Eavis,
h...
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If three is the magic number, then four is just bad luck...
By DanVF
on
07 November 2009
You’ve got to feel sorry for the organisers of Dubai Sound City. Debut events are often the most difficult to pull off
and it has to be even harder setting up a festival thousands of miles from home. So things won’t have been made any
eas...
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Dubai Sound City, erm, shock: Bez can't get into the county...
By DanVF
on
06 November 2009
I always thought that Dubai was a city built on oil, but since getting here it has become quite obvious that taxis are their
life blood. You can’t seem to get anywhere without travelling in a taxi. Sadly it doesn’t look like De La Soul
wi...
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Sober Sound City: can our hedonistic heroes perform dry in Dubai?
By DanVF
on
05 November 2009
Sex and drugs and rock and roll – the mantra all young bands are made to adhere to when they sign up for the job. Swearing
upon an original Les Paul guitar, the latest rock stars promise to follow the code of conduct with Sid Vicious as a witne...
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Finally flagged up - flags at festivals!
By DanVF
on
04 August 2009
Oh rejoice! It’s finally happened! Flags have been banned from festivals. That’s right; Reading Festival bosses
have finally given the giant-poled dishcloths the push with little more noise than a swish in the air. Instead they discreetly...
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The Isle of Wight-dentity Crisis
By DanVF
on
09 June 2009
The 1970 Isle of Wight Festival is still regarded as one of greatest music festivals of all time. It attracted the biggest
ever crowd at a festival and it was where Jimi Hendrix played his final performance before his untimely death. However since
it...
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Glastonbury line-up: our initial reactions
By DanVF
on
25 May 2009
The Glastonbury line-up is finally here - you can almost hear the pattering of heavy rain on that cheap tent canvas can't
you? - and while at first glance there are no big surprises of Jay-Z's magnitude like last year, next month's colour...
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Snow blogging @ Snowbombing
By DanVF
on
30 March 2009
Friday10.30pm“Because 2 Many DJs were stuck in traffic we got an hour extension, but it does mean we have to stop at
10.30,” a voice announces dimming down the chant of “one more tune.”Luckily the evening is just getting
start...
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Back from the dead - can festival failures be resurrected?
By DanVF
on
24 March 2009
As the credit crunch tightens the proverbial belt around our ever-shrinking waists, it's becoming more difficult to stage
festivals - especially new ones. Already this semester Wild In The Country and Blissfields have pulled the plug on the...
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Edging east to EXIT
By DanVF
on
24 March 2009
Like hundreds of festival fans who've spent the last few days unwinding from Croatia's Garden Festival, VF is heading
east, across the Serbian border to EXIT Festival in the town of Novi Sad. Organisers here say they're noticing a real
ex...
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Garden Festival: is the grass always greener?
By DanVF
on
24 March 2009
So we've watched the cream of Europe show us why we're so overrated in a football sense, time to see what goes on
in the festival sphere. Following the best Glastonbury in years, VF has headed east to tour Eastern Europe, starting in Croati...
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