Thetownend.com

tell me some new bands to listen to while there is such good coverage online...

Not really new, but Catfish and The Bottlemen are class.

Its mostly a bag of shit.  But though I know I should act my age, Enter Shikari are fucking ace.  Smashing it up on the John Peel stage now.

We settled down for some music and got some squealing ginger we'd never heard of.  what the hell happened to a big set of drums?

Yep, that was pretty damned poor IMO - can't see the appeal for the life of me  :no:

Its lady music.

I consider myself an enlightened male with good taste in music but it passes me by as well.

Kanye West...

(http://ahtbm.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/2015/03/tumbleweed.jpg)

Not for me I'm afraid....

Agreed.  On the other hand, Ben Howard (currently on BBC3) is pretty darned good.

 :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:"He just tried to sing a bit of bohemian rhapsody... Badly... Stick to the rapping sunshine

https://vine.co/v/eJeHLVJZvB3

I love kanye west. Rockstars are supposed to be brash and arrogant. Not Chris fucking Martin. He's incredibly gifted at what he does (which is admittedly not to every bodies taste). He's awesome

And I'd much rather have watched that set than watch someone like blur spend two hours trying to stay relevant. Have you heard the latest blur song. Ong ong ong. If it was released by a newer band it wouldn't get any of the AirPlay it does. As it is the bearded middle aged white guys who decide what radio 6 play put it out all the time. Damon albarn could release 3 and a half minutes of him farting into a crisp packet and Steve lamaq would still herald it as groundbreaking and innovative

When I was a young man I played in a band.  We had some interest from record companies.  Andy Ross from food records asked us to come and play in London.  Fucker turned up late and missed our gig.  Next band he signed was seymour who then changed there name to blur.

For that reason, they have my record deal and I hate them.  They are also mainly rubbish.

The most important thing is that you've moved on........................

Indeed.  Im not bitter.  As bassist Im clearly not jealous that I could have had an exciting cocaine career followed by living in the cotswolds making cheese and being mates with Jamie Oliver. 

Cheese is good.

Jamie Oliver isn't.

Since when has Chris Martin been a rock star?

Kayne West was awful. Not my idea of music. Get some guitars, bass and drums up there and make some proper noise. Saturday night headliner at Glasto? There would have probably been better acts on the introducing stage.

Kanye West is currently one of the biggest names in music. The industry excitement of his first couple of albums seems to have been lost within the tabloid nonsense.

I don't listen to his stuff but it doesn't take a fan to realise that he's good at what he does. I saw him at a festival about 10 years ago and he was great fun.

Snobby Glastonbury elitism seems to be as consistent as the Somerset rain.

Missed out on tickets this year so hadn't properly looked at the line up. Initially declared it as being pretty pants. Can't say I was too enamoured with the headliners. But missing out on Everything Everyhting (saw them on Wednesday in Gloucester though), Jungle, Maccabees, Catfish, Wolf Alice, Glass Animals and Alabama Shakes, to name just a few, does smart a bit.

Just watched a snippet or two of Kanye's set. Can't say I really like his stuff...and he's a twat. But I did look bloody impressive. Fair play.

Just turned on the Lionel Ritchie stream, looks like him and the crowd are having an absolute blast.

Its funny how many angry posts there have been about Kanye. Lots of popele saying he shouldn't be there, in the same way the Metallica shouldn't have been there last year. If you dont like someone, don't watch them.

I remember back in 2000 (ish) when Eminem was billed for reading and the Rock/Metal scene were up in arms about it. He played again a few years ago and everyone loved it.

Same with Jay Z around that time too. Who cares who plays at a festival. Go see the bands/artists you like and enjoy it.

Different kind of festival, but has anyone ever gone to the Boomtown Festival in Arlesford in Hampshire.

Bit too folksy for me but I'd love to see Flogging Molly

was talking to one of my younger coworkers the other day, he rated flogging molly as the best (most fun) gig he's ever been to.

Flogging Molly are pretty good fun.

Yeah good band, should be bigger.

Went to Boomtown last year and it was brilliant, plenty of variety to it. The effort they put in creating the different districts is amazing.

The band I used to manage played Glastonbury, Womad and Boomtown...Boomtown was by far the best set up and overall layout by far.

Lionel Richie has just won Glastonbury.

Does anyone know why his drummer is playing behind what looks like a bullet proof screen? 

Its a sound shield for when the drums are too loud for the group.

Its to shield him from the overspill of sound from the other instruments and vice versa.  Its fairly common practice with older artists with a lot of players on stage.

Nah the Who will be awesome.

When are The Who on?

Oh, OK thanks for that.  Couldn't remember seeing anyone else doing that before.  I thought maybe he was in the 'witness protection scheme' or something. :)

Im sure The Who have it as well on account of Pete Townsend being a deaf old fucker these days.

Hope I die before I get really bad tinnitus.

The whole thought of Glastonbury just makes me shudder -  each to their own but it doesn't appeal to me AT ALL

I just cant justify paying the 250 odd quid or whatever for the weekend. The first festival i went to was reading in 1999 or 2000 i forget but i think i paid something like 60 quid for the weekend.

When I went to the first one in 1970, it was a pound.  That's inflation for you.

Again, each to their own, but despite the price inflation over the years, I still think the 220 quid (I think that's what it was this year) is incredible value for what you get at Glastonbury. It's no longer just a few bands playing in a muddy field, but a 24 hour a day assault on the senses for 5 days.
For me, spending 2/3/4 times that on some trip just for a bit of sun, coming back with a net cultural gain of finding out what a Sunday roast tastes like in a shit bar on a Majorca beach, is completely mad.

I'm certainly not saying festivals as a whole give good VFM these days. I just happened to see a poster for Cornbury festival the other day. The line up looked like something you'd be more likely to see at pontins or something these days, and all for 180 quid! Fuck me. I'm not entirely sure what the extra curricular activities are there to be fair, but they'd have to be pretty fucking special for that price.

If you went 2000 Oasis headlined. I watched Muse and Calexico in tents when they were playing

Also on I remember were Foo Fighters and Limp bizkit

I first went in '87.  It was my first festival and will always be the benchmark for me.  After that I went again and then to a few other festivals and was amazed how the other festivals had nothing except a few food stalls, a few stages and a funfair.  It just didn't compare.

The thing is it doesn't matter at all about the lineup.  Last visit we couldn't find anything we wanted to see on the Sunday night so ended up doing a combination of comedy tent and arcadia dance stage rather than any big name acts.  You can walk for hours at Glastonbury and find weird and interesting things so you are never bored.  

2013 I tour managed an act at lunchtime and stood on the side of the stage looking out thinking 'fuck, I cannot believe Im here'.

It'll always have a special place in my heart despite now having too many knobs there.

Straight up.

The knob factor has certainly grown, even over the time I've been going. You could almost track it along with the popularity of laughing gas being used there. Haven't got much of a problem with people doing it (apart from the fact huffing on a fucking balloon for 20 seconds looks fucking ridiculous), but a normally fairly serene part of the site is punctured with the noise of gas canisters going off every 5 seconds, and then the twats just leave thousands of canisters strewn about the green fields and stone circle.

Like you, I've been spoilt by Glastonbury being the only thing I've known, (although I've been going to Cropredy festival since being a babe in arms, but it doesn't really compare). Can't stomach the idea of Reading, but went to Benicassim a fair few years ago and couldn't believe how shit it was.

Yep, we call them "meatheads" where I live. Same principle - most of them aren't there for any of the performing arts. I went in 2010 (a couple of my friends* were playing in the Green Futures/Small World Tents - Incidentally one of his friends was session playing for Radiohead on the "secret gig" Park stage which we all got duly invited backstage for - enough name dropping) and although it was amazing and saw many established acts, I made sure to check out lesser known stuff too. I think (if you have a broad sense of music) it's important to immerse yourself in a wide scale of music on the whole. That way we keep on discovering new stuff for ourselves.

Living in Derbyshire, I now make the annual trip to YNot Festival, set in the Peak District. For 4 days its just a smidge over £100, which i think is a bargain, when you pro rata it to gigs attended and by days.  There are a lot of newer and less known bands and artists there along with a good nostalgic mix of older bands and current stuff too. One thing i'll say, they always book bands that perform good live.

This year they have top acts such as;

snoop dogg
super furry animals
Reverend and the Makers
Young Guns
Slaves
Honeyblood
basement jaxx
ocean colour scene
Saint Raymond
Deaf Havana
The Academic
primal scream
johnny marr
The Strypes
Rhodes
Less Than Jake
public service broadcasting
Jake Issacc
We-Are-Scientists
rae-morris
Grant Nicholas(Feeder)
Jagaara
nick mulvey
Gengahr
Pulled Apart By Horses
The Xcerts
Brawlers
Get Inuit
don broco
hacktivist
Bo Ningen
Arcane Roots
Lower Than Atlantis
We Are The Ocean
Nine Black Alps
Ash
Beans on Toast
Asylums
Bloxed Beats

and many more.

All kicks off on 30th July....
www.ynotfestivals.co.uk if you're interested.

Sorry for Spamming haha, But for a small festival i'd say they have booked some top acts.

*John Elliott and his Full strings set called The Little Unsaid. 

On the magic bus, Reg?

Ford Anglia...bit like this

(http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mol/collections/transport/graphics/large/ford-anglia-pete-carr.jpg)

I was a Triumph Herald man, meself.

Did anyone see Suede's set at Glastonbury?  :clap:

It was on Iplayer over the weekend and I listened to it in the background rather than watched. Sounded decent.

Yep. From near the front. Brett Anderson was going for it, really good set.

Libertines the highlight for me this year though.

This.

Most people would struggle not to find 5 acts on the bill in any given year they'd love to see; get a ticket to see them separately at their own gigs and that's at least the cost of your ticket right there. Fuck me, Paul Weller on his own at the Oasis was £50 a few months back.

Plus it's not just about the main stages as has been said. There's nearly 100 venues, stages and arenas altogether. It's impossible to explain the scale of it to someone who's never been. Areas like Arcadia and Shangri La are just mind blowing.

Totally agree about festivals being worth the money.
It's so much more than just music these days too. I go to Download and 2000 Tree's each year - Yes I get more than my moneys worth from the amount of bands I see, but there's everything else involved too. There's so much to do! The atmosphere alone is something else.
Fingers crossed I get tickets for Glastonbury next year. It's on the bucket list!

I've heard of Kanye West, of course I have, but I don't really pay much attention to the stars. I recognise a couple of his songs and even quite enjoy them. Just now though I was intrigued and just had to have a google/youtube of him.

Heavens to Betsy, what a cunt.

Same here...but how can he be a headline act?!

He isn't. There was probably (at a guess) about 200 more worthy acts at Glastonbury and probably more like 2,000 in the UK alone. What a fraud.

You probably need to flush the rest of that meth down the pan!

Dude is the sixth highest selling music artist in US history and has seven platinum albums, you can criticise his music (can't say I like him much) and he's evidently a massive twat, but to say he isn't a headline act is madness. Consider that in the last few years, headliners have included Florence and the Machine, The Verve and Gorillaz. I prefer all three of those, but Kanye is a bigger booking than any of them.

U2 headlined (admittedly without Bono as his back  was fooked) in 2010 as well as Radiohead and Muse. I'd say they're bigger bookings than some guy who thinks he's a rapper. Eminem, Dr.Dre, Tupac and even Snoop are Better R&B artists imo.

I get the angle you're coming from though. No pun intended!

He's still a massive cunt though.

Or - he's the defining artist of his generation, the single biggest act on the planet at the moment and arguably the biggest hip-hop artist of all time.

Different folks, different strokes but don't worry, I'm sure fucking Coldplay, Elbow and Kasabian will all be back next year trotting out the same old shit.

I do take your point PP, I guess I just don't 'get' that style of music, never have, never will.

That said, its the beauty of music and the multitude of artists out there in the musical spectrum that there is such a wide and varied mix of genres that there is something for everyone.

On a slightly festival related note, I am off (well, walking 10 minutes to) to Clapham Calling on Saturday, Elle King, Sunset Suns, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Hives, Modest Mouse, Ryan Adams and Noel Gallagher. Looking forward to a day in the sun listening to live music, can't beat it!

Five Finger Death Punch are at Wembley

I am working for 5 days in Finsbury park doing the wireless festival.  An absolute joy if you dont like all that type of kenny west music.

Had press passes for Drake last Sunday - he was incredible.

Agree up to a point, but I was at the Tolpuddle Free festival in 2013, and it was hot  like atm....about 32 C....a bit overpowering, especially as bodies generate heat as well. The marquees away from main stage, and beer tents etc, had a stay in time of about 10 minutes tops.

Ahhhhh our old friend Drake!

Think the wireless lineup is so much better than V this year? Especially as it's Vfests 20th anniversary
Are you working there this year? We are still undecided, if we do go it will probably be just the Sat,
Another baby on board this year! (Not mine!)

Blimey. I will be doing V as well. I'm not too keen on wireless line up. Not my type of thing but I'm being paid. Let me know if you do end up at v.

Couldn't find the thread so nothing to do with Glastonbury, apparently John Otway is playing in Swindon Friday night, Hertha get yourself down there.

Is this part of the Swindon Shuffle thing? www.swindonshuffle.org.uk

Oh would you look at that... Coldplay headlining 2016. Foos on the Friday night almost guaranteed too. Back to boring old band shit.

Even the best rumours make it look abysmal.
Though I do love the Foos, Grohl is just a great performer, which is the whole point of festivals really.

Who's going then? I'm not liking the look of all this rain at the moment, forecast is better for the weekend but that won't matter much if we have to pitch the tents in a muddy lake.

Looks like a scene from a Nigel Farage billboard today.  Probably best just to stay awake for the duration...

This has to be the laziest forum i have ever known. Start a new thread for fucksake

It's just recycling the TEF's resources.....surely something most Glastonbury goers woulkd approve of?