Rob Da Bank's Weekly Blog #9

Another busy seven days from Rob

United Kingdom | by Rob da Bank | 15 May 2009

From some sad festival cancellations to some very exciting European plans, it's been another busy week for Rob!

Just had Music Week magazine on the blower asking me about the state of festivals at the moment and will there be more cancellations? I know there are some promoters who are excited about the prospect of there being less festivals next year but I hand on heart hope there aren’t any more cancellations. The competitive market that’s evolved over the last five to ten years in the independent market especially keeps everyone on their toes and has incidentally fine tuned many a festival budget to cope with most eventualities. As with any free market there will always be casualties and the festivals without a loyal crowd or the right line up could be the next victims but everyone who runs a festival could be the next one to fall out of favour (look at Glastonbury last year) so I’ll never be pleased to see anyone go down.

The festi season kicked off for me last week with the Radio 1 Big Weekend and I was hoping to go to the Wood Festival this weekend but have had to come to the Isle of Wight last minute so enjoy it for me!

I’ve just had two European shows confirmed that I’ve been looking forward to for ages – the Trena Festival in Norway looks incredible. I’ve always played loads in Norway and love the crowds there who don’t mind me going from rockabilly to gabba in ten minutes and I reckon you might just be joining me after you’ve checked out these pictures of the site here! Wow that is some view. The night after Trena I’m straight on some crazy combination of flights to get to Exit in Serbia which is celebrating its tenth birthday with an incredible line up. I’ve been lazy too long basking in the UK festival scene and enjoying all our homegrown talents but I need to get out there and check out our worldwide competition – that’s my excuse anyway! I’m headlining an intriguing tent of fellow Dutch DJs, so the gabba probably will come in handy!

Lastly I’m well excited that we’ve just nailed Carl Cox for another of his old skool sets at Bestival in September and Karl and Rick from Underworld are coming back after last years stroming headline set to warm it up for Kraftwerk on the main stage. A kind of honour and curse if you get it wrong. I’ll be looking on in a mixture of relief and envy.Until next time happy festivalling.

Robby

Rob da Bank
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