The Great Music Festivals

[hummingofevil]

Big or small, line up or vibe. What are you personal favourites?

I'm feeling a bit stir crazy and sad about lack of summer holiday so mind drifting to good times past. Last years Primavera was great but felt like a series of great gigs rather than chilling with friends. One of the early Sonars was great (2000/2001 maybe?). Herbert, Mouse on Mars; Hellfish and Producer and loads of chilling in Day and the classic techno run of Hawtin/Cox/Mills/Umek by night and Bjork.

Best one i ever went to was Phoenix 96. Line up was insane for big names and scorchio weather and that Autechre ATP was pretty special (for about 10s Public Enemy played a gig to just me).


Tell me more; cheer me up. :)

[imitationleather]

Bang Face Weekender this year was contagious.

[Captain Crunch]

Those early Supersonic weekends were sweet.  It all went a bit tediously weird in recent years but that one where you had Thrones and High On Fire, magic. 

[Pauline Walnuts]

Best. Line-up. Eva.

[non capisco]

Best. Line-up. Eva.

'Milf EMF Pool Party' is one hell of a desolate sentence.

[gilbertharding]

First festival I went to. Had an odd vibe - it was the first Reading Festival I would even have considered going to, being the year after Bonnie Tyler had been bottled off and Jefferson Starship headlined the Saturday.

I remember there seemed to be large numbers of baffled old rockers wandering about the place who probably thought it was all a load of shit. And the Mutoid Waste Company (or something like it) seemed to be squatting in the camping area. None of these elements were still there in 1990.

[holyzombiejesus]

I went on the Friday and had to sleep in Reading station, and got told off by a policemen for dry humping a girl on the concourse.

[gilbertharding]

I had a ticket for the whole thing - £32.50, apparently.

Remember loving Spacemen 3, MBV, Loop, World Domination Enterprises, Butthole Surfers. Saw New Order, and the Sugarcubes in the rain, but not really my cup of tea.

Good site here:

http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/reading-89.html

[SweetPomPoms]

Best one i ever went to was Phoenix 96. Line up was insane for big names and scorchio weather :)

The Prodigy in the tent, day after their big stage show :)
And Sunday in the tent was an all day Ninja Tunes showcase. That tent all weekend, basically.
2 niche festivals for you, both found by accident while on unrelated holidays..

Siren Festival 2004. Coney Island, free and didn't even know it was on til we got off the train.
Death Cab for Cutie, TV On the Radio, Electric Six, And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Mission of Burma, Har Mar Superstar.
Shit beer but amazing hot dogs.

Lost Weekend, Bergen 2006
Enslaved, Jazzy Jeff and The Cardigans. On an island in the middle of a fjord. Just getting there was a full on Col Kurtz experience.

[hummingofevil]

The Prodigy in the tent, day after their big stage show :)
And Sunday in the tent was an all day Ninja Tunes showcase. That tent all weekend, basically.
2 niche festivals for you, both found by accident while on unrelated holidays..

Siren Festival 2004. Coney Island, free and didn't even know it was on til we got off the train.
Death Cab for Cutie, TV On the Radio, Electric Six, And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Mission of Burma, Har Mar Superstar.
Shit beer but amazing hot dogs.

Lost Weekend, Bergen 2006
Enslaved, Jazzy Jeff and The Cardigans. On an island in the middle of a fjord. Just getting there was a full on Col Kurtz experience.

Aye. I was in there. Dancing at the back with maroon cords, yellow fred perry and blue suede shoes (literally). As soon as they finished place was electric so DJ just slammed Born Slippy straight on and everyone went mental again. No fucking about.

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

Lost Weekend, Bergen 2006
Enslaved, Jazzy Jeff and The Cardigans. On an island in the middle of a fjord. Just getting there was a full on Col Kurtz experience.

I suppose Enslaved being local boys got them on that bill. Quite random still.

[badaids]

Glasto 95 not only best festival ever but also most 90s thing ever.

G Love and Special Sauce - blew my mind.

[sardines]

In the early 00's great music went North.
The early http://arika.org.uk/archive/items/instal-05 Instal festivals were ridiculous. I saw the last ever Sun City Girls show and a Japanese guy from a legendary 80s noise band jumped on my head.
I travelled up from Newcastle stayed in a shitty hostel and  would take an early train back on Monday to get to work in time, my mind buzzing from everything I'd seen.
They then did a festival in Newcastle which included a 4 hour Keiji Haino performance. In fucking Newcastle.
On top of that a world war 2 submarine arrived and Wolf Eyes played. Lots of people on the Tyne were pissed this was not for them but I was there. This was not a dream, I have video evidence.

[Captain Crunch]

Any time Iron Maiden turn up and pull this classic out of the bag:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epYKVcHrVr0

You know you love it.

[Cuellar]

Leeds '05

[SweetPomPoms]

Glasto 95 not only best festival ever but also most 90s thing ever..

Yeah, best one I went to. 91 was probably my best Reading.

Those Clapham Common one-dayers that were sponsored by Ben & Jerrys were always a laugh, can't say no to free ice cream and the Stuffies or Billy Bragg. Beaten into second place by the Belga festivals in Zeebrugge though. On the beach and gave out free cigs on the way in :)

[The Mollusk]

Seeing Aphex Twin play an absolute blinder while a mental thunder storm whipped the life out of me in Texas will always be one of the best festival experiences I've had. Day For Night, December 2016.

On top of that we got to see the absolutely dismal Butthole Surfers reunion that had a lot of the crowd raging, as my mate turned to me, tripping his face off, and said "We flew 5000 miles for this!" and laughed like a maniac. In a way, since every other set we saw was faultless and fantastic, that one was sort of the highlight of the weekend.

We also got Lightning Bolt, Ariel Pink (who played a set of entirely new and unheard tracks from the forthcoming "Bobby Jameson" record), Liars, Tobacco, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Banks, and standardly a load of other stuff I hadn't heard at the time and now am kicking myself for not going to see.

[Neomod]

https://www.txauction.com/auctions/911/1/

[hummingofevil]

Well look what I found. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OswFpx5SDqA Judge for yourselves. :)

TBH I was never a HUGE fan even though I saw them twice that weekend but this is ace. I so much want the schemtaic for Howlett's live set up.

[The Mollusk]

Looks like loads of fun, love seeing a few hundred people jumping up and down in unison and I bet the experience was intense and euphoric. I probably would have been going apeshit if I was there (even though I would have only been 9 years old) but sitting in my living room on a Wednesday morning I gotta say Maxim squawking like a mad seagull is more annoying than fun. Ditto Flint's pissed up karaoke voice.

[Pavlov`s Dog`s Dad`s Dead]

First festival I went to. Had an odd vibe - it was the first Reading Festival I would even have considered going to, being the year after Bonnie Tyler had been bottled off and Jefferson Starship headlined the Saturday.

I remember there seemed to be large numbers of baffled old rockers wandering about the place who probably thought it was all a load of shit. And the Mutoid Waste Company (or something like it) seemed to be squatting in the camping area. None of these elements were still there in 1990.

The Saturday line-up was my dream festival roster at the time[nb]Actually, I'd still make the effort these days. And now I'm realising that it's been 13 years since I was at any kind of music festival... [/nb] but for some reason I couldn't make it. And looking at the set list, the Pogues in particular gave pretty good value[nb]assuming Shane wasn't having a bad day. I saw him a few years later with the Popes, and he was so wrecked it was a wonder the mic stand didn't collapse, he was hanging from it so desperately. And yet it was an electric performance [nb]Judas![/nb]. After the Pogues had had more of his shit than they could take, they brought in Joe Strummer, who frankly killed them stone dead. And not in a good way.[/nb] Most likely 16 year old me couldn't raise the cash. Seeing that flyer brought all the longing straight back, though. And all the dubious joys of an adolescence spent in the Bradford post-punk scene. So thanks for that. I think.

[Oz Oz Alice]

That Friday lineup is insane: Swans, New Order, MBV and Spacemen 3? For fuck's sake.

[studpuppet]

Another +1 one for this. Aged eighteen and drove there with mates - driver had passed his test four weeks previously and not been on a motorway before. Friday was wet - remember spending some of it sheltering under the portaloo trailer, not knowing if that was rain dripping on me or not...

It's also where my thirty year-long love affair with this lot started.

https://youtu.be/-mpjhdctgJQ?t=3004

[Puce Moment]

Yep - I was at that. I had no money or tent. Actually, I had nothing apart from a ventolin inhaler. Had a blast! Spacemen 3 and Loop were highlights for me.

In other news, the Damnation Festival in November is looking like it is going to be a distanced audience, masks and UK bands only. No way hoe-zay!

[SteveDave]

The only festival I ever went to was the Friday of Reading in 2002. We stayed at the main stage for almost the whole day. I think we tried to go and see The Vines but the tent was full. It pissed it down for Jane's Addiction but was sunny for everyone else. The smell of burning plastic filled the air.

On the way out my then girlfriend and I followed the wrong people and ended up in the campsite when we should've been heading for the town centre where we were meeting her brother and his friend. We got to them after about 2 hours of walking. Great days. 

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

I was at the Leeds leg of that festival. The Strokes were seriously underwhelming as far as headliners go, who'd have thought a band with one overhyped album under their belt would not make a decent closing act?

I remember the Foo Fighters being duller that dishwater and then watching about 50 bogs near my tent get set alight and riot police clashing with a crowd of shit cunts who were tearing lighting etc down. Great times.