Summer really is icumen in, so time to get the tent out the garage, air the sleeping bag and review your set of heritage Ts, it’s festival season!!
I’m kicking off with Bearded Theory, in a fortnight, ahead of New Forest, Sidmouth and, fingers crossed Beautifyl Days? Anyone coming! Or what and where are your tips and favourites?
And, for the naysayers, is there any single performer you would sleep in a field to see, eating noodles off a cardboard plate, supping ale from a recyclable glass(deposit included in first purchase)?
Going to Solid Sound Festival in Massachusetts late June, then we kick into full festival season in Ottawa. Jazz fest, followed by Bluesfest in July, then City Folk in September, will pick and choose an odd show . No camping for me, Airbnb for SS and my own bed in Ottawa.
Have only camped once. At Out in the Green, Frauenfeld in Switzerland 1995. Saw R.E.M, Faith no More, Oasis, Sheryl Crow, Paul Weller and The Beautiful South. That was all in one evening. Took us ages to find our tent afterwards, got about 3 hours sleep interrupted by people throwing up outside our tent, then left earlyish following morning and got the train back to Zurich. Not the most enjoyable night and health issues that kicked in afterwards meant that I want my own bathroom these days. I enjoyed most of the music though.
Dull background info but… years ago my folks bought a static caravan on the North Norfolk coast and the gas plumbing has to be redone after 20 years (which is in 2 years). My mum doesn’t want the cost (she’ll be 78 by then) and Mrs F doesn’t want to pay £60k for a static replacement. She would, however, be prepared to buy a VW campervan, which has the same footprint as a Passat Estate, so is relatively easy to drive.
A university friend of Mrs F started a campervan hire company in Scotland during lockdown 2. This summer we’re hiring one of her vehicles for a week. It comes fitted with a 2-ring coooker, fridge, (cold) shower and toilet.
If we were to buy one similar, I might be able to go to a festival again.
I have friends who love theirs and cruise around Europe for 6 weeks every summer which sounds lovely. I’m just not sure I would sleep a wink. We ought to hire one for the weekend and try it I guess.
We’re hiring one for a week to do a sprint round some of the NC500 route, but staying on sites with electric hookups and toilet/warm shower blocks, so I hope not to use the in-van facilities.
If the trip is a success, we might invest in one when Mrs F takes early retirement and I reduce to 3 or 4 days a week.
Camper vans can be big bucks and they hold their value, especially VW/Mercedes.
My dad had a VW Dormobile in the 70s. OK for a couple on a long weekend, family of four on a two week holiday not so much. I’d consider something based on a large van as I’m used to driving them but cramped conditions with fucking fold out everything, no thanks and don’t get me started on tents…….
I occasionally (once or twice a year) drive a Sprinter at work and I don’t mind it but I don’t really want to drive anything bigger. My folks had a two-axle caravan and a Landy Discovery to tow it – all far too much trouble for me, as would be one of those huge Mobile Home things.
I’d quite happily never drive at all, but… for better and for worse, etc.
We have a not so new VW T5 LWB camper and it’s great for festivals. I can’t think I’d be going to any to sleep in a tent since we got it.
Mostly Jazz in July down the road – so no tent needed. Looking forward to hearing Leftfield shake the foundations. Ms Moles going back for the Folk fest in September for Belle and Sebastian.
Back to Stowaway again (in August). It’s near, the little one likes it and it doesn’t cost too much. There’s not a lot on the line up I recognise, but I quite enjoy that. Leftfield and Groove Armada headlining could be good, I’ll have a listen to the rest of the line up nearer the time.
Also, we’ve now got a double sleeping bag, a carpet for the tent and our own trolley to move stuff about. Proper luxury!
Out of consideration for other festival goers I won’t be attending any more. My presence guarantees torrential rain or, very occasionally, baking sun from dawn till dusk. Never again.
I loved camping back in the day though. Just the presence of music is the catalyst for days of misery.
My last festival was Cropredy two years ago, I’d been all prepared to camp but alas the friend I was going with had contracted covid the week before. Cancelled the three days and drove down Saturday morning drove back home straight after the festival.
I’ve slept in the car before, blacking out the windows, (as soon as it’s light in a tent I’m awake). I don’t think there’s anyone that would make me camp again as I find it too uncomfortable now.
You can get tents made of blackout material now I believe. I too have this problem and we have blackout blinds and curtains half an inch thick at home.
Went to bearded theory last year and really enjoyed it. But apart from Dinosaur Jnr the bill doesn’t appeal.
However we didn’t camp but stay in the St. George’s Park Hilton about five miles away (home of an England football team).
Ideal! Apart from the cost of course.
I’m of the firm opinion that camping, for whatever reason, even something fun like a festival, was only ever bearable with the sort of booze and drugs I wouldn’t even contemplate in staggering distance of my comfortable bed these days. Still, I’m a bit surprised to find out the last time was as long ago as Cropredy in 2012.
Obviously it’s a festival and you expect people to get festive but my main memory is of a man close to our tent, possibly enjoying his annual dose of speed, treating his mates to a lengthy monologue at enormous volume well past everyone else’s bedtime. ’ … AND THIS DAIRY LORRY IN BANBURY IT HAD A PICTURE OF A COW ON IT AND I THOUGHT THAT WAS A NICE TOUCH BECAUSE THIS IS A RURAL AREA AND …’ when he eventually drew breath to ask if anyone was having another drink I shouted, ‘Shut up and go to bed you boring, boring man!’ There was a pause, then the wounded response, ’IS THAT ME?’, and chorus of ‘YES!!!’ From the surrounding tents.
I’m with you, here. I inherited three tents and was persuaded to relive my youth with a pitch in the back garden. I lasted till about 2 o’clock before retreating into the house, the tents were soon given away.
As I can’t get off the ground unaided any longer, that’s a big NO from me to the notion of sleeping in a tent ever again.
I’ve slept in a car, I’ve slept in a tent – I’d rather eat my own liver than do it again.
And as for the toilet situation…
Are these abandoned lyrics from “I’ve Never Been to Me” by Charlene?
God, I wish they were…
After 15 years devotion to End Of The Road some “friends” have scheduled a wedding for the very same weekend, so we have gone for Green Man for a similar but different experience. I can’t wait – I just love a festival.
Do report back; it is a bucket list one for between now and I get too old.
We’ve done EOTR since 2010 and Green Man since 2017. Both great festivals in lovely locations , but I think I will be dropping GM next year as the line ups are getting rather disappointing.
Same is true for EOTR i suppose but I always come to love so many bands there I’ve never heard before. GM less so.
Of course, I’m doing loads of folk festivals again. I always do. They’re what I work for.
Chester at the end of this month, Ely. I used to go to Cambridge every year, but as I started to sing and dance, I would go to Warwick instead. But there are things that Cambridge does do that other folk festivals don’t – it has certainly introduced me to a wider range of influences – so I’m looking forward to a return this year. Sidmouth, Shrewsbury, a European dance festival in Herefordshire, Bromyard, and the wonderful finale in October of the French/Breton dance Festival des Panards in Todmorden.
That’s 35 nights sleeping in a field, but I make life very comfortable for myself, ’cause it’s worth investing when your spending 10% of the year in this fashion. I’m not averse to paper-plated food from the stalls, but I eat pretty healthily while I’m away and, as you’d expect, no plastic beer mugs for me – of course, I have a tankard.
What’s new this year is that, for the first time since learning how to dance the stuff, I am getting to Brittany at the end of next month, weaving a fortnight’s cycling through 5 fest noz. For me, this is beyond exciting.
You picked a good year to return to Cambridge! An initially lacklustre line-up is now near wonderful. Wish I were, but the timings won’t tally this year. Shrewsbury is in its usual cycle of killer to filler, and is mainly the latter, this year, at leaston the performance side, knowing you go more for the participation side.
Bromyard depends on how many good husband brownie points I can accumulate over the summer. And on whether Beautiful days get back in touch with me, as they have said. (But they said that last year…….
Or I could pay my way.
Anyone Glastonburying this year? I’m in no hurry to ever return, and, thankfully, the Eavis’s seem unlikely to book anyone who might even begin to appeal, making it that much easier.
I had been looking at Northern Kin earlier in the year, as the line-up was certainly intriguing, and they have a lot to prove after the fiasco they had last year, elements wise. But I see they have postponed until August, citing weather as the cause. Hmmmmm, uncertain: like the live music circuit, I sense a mix of overload of choice and underload of punter’s pockets……
Bromyard looks like a great line-up.
I love your enthusiasm Cat.
I love your new avatar, Twang.
Shucks
I don’t know who it is. Is it Roy Castle?
*sighs*.
SWIDT
We should have a thread on lead guitar gurners. Yer man must be inside the top 10, shurely?
We already have a winner.
Awwww! It’s nice to see him again. 2017 or 2018 I think he died.
I’ll have to go off now and play all my Hatfields/National Health albums while staring into the middle distance…
Wearing a greatcoat of course.
I was never a big greatcoat wearer tbh – I was usually found in a used combat jacket out of the Army & Navy stores; workman’s jeans with a ruler pocket; and desert boots…
That is proper Champions League gurning.
Can we include bassists? This comp of Este Haim gurning at Glastonbury is somehow all the better for having no music.
OMG!
I mean – whaaaat?
Speaking as a “less demonstrative” bass player, I find it hard to imagine…I suspect my fellow band members would stage an intervention.
I’ll post this here too as I can recommend the Haim photo.
https://www.diyphotography.net/that-moment-rockstars-realize-theyre-jamming-on-giant-slugs/#:~:text=Glasgow%2Dbased%20blogger%20Michael%20M,featured%20all%20over%20the%20web.
Fair play to her; that lipstick suggests she’s just decided to embrace the situation.
Mrs Beezer and I have never been to a festival before but we’d like to go to one before infirmity hoves into view. It’s on its way. We have no intention or desire to ever crawl into a tent again.
If we were to muster ourselves we’d join the hired camper van/Winnebago crew. For the ‘comfort’ and ‘our very own toilet’. Though we’d no doubt be have to park at least a mile from the festival action and be obliged to spend our pennies in the communal dunnies on site anyway.
Plus, we’d be too thrilled at being in a hired camper van. The risk of us simply sitting at the tiny kitchen table playing Buckaroo and Operation (and using our own toilet) the entire weekend would be far too great.
Arf!
Black Deer for third year running. Looking forward to the Delines, Roseanne Cash, Sheryl Crow and Hermsnis Guittarez mostly. The fact that Rufus Wainwright is headline on the Sunday at least allows and early departure.
No tens for me and the missus – local Premier Inn and a daily bus shuttle is fine.
I’ll be staging a festival in my pants as usual this year.
All summer long.
And they said the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were fetid?
All the proof you need, @fitterstoke
@retropath2
Well played, sir – chapeau!
I’ll be at Bearded Theory, as per usual, having been to every one from 2010 onwards. It’s changed and evolved a lot over the years but still my favourite festival. Must sees for me this year: Janes Addiction (a bucket list band that I never saw back in the day), Orbital, New Model Army (for the 873rd time), Ist Ist, Dinosaur Jr, The Blunders, Bob Vylan, Les Savy Fav, Dry Cleaning, Therapy?, Green Lung, Bodega (who are also doing an additional Bodega play Dylan set which might be interesting), and loads more, hopefully including retropath2.
Not going to Beautiful Days this year, which is a disappointment as it’s usually a great weekend, but the line up this time round is the weakest I’ve ever seen, and considering we’ve normally gone as a family it’s quite pricey – £600 for tickets for the three of us, not even considering the amount I’d have to spend on booze to tolerate being in the same postcode as Hard Fi.
You’ve missed out the mighty Peat & Diesel!!
I used to really like camping but haven’t done it since Cornbury in about 2010. It rained constantly and we went home a day early. We’ve still got the tent and I suggested to Mrs T that we have a weekend away but she gave me a look and that was that.