CMJ Days 4 & 5: The DiS review
Read our coverage of Day 4 and 5 of CMJ festival.»
Read our coverage of Day 4 and 5 of CMJ festival.»
It’s not so much Fun Zone as Twilight Zone, and there’s a lot to be said for that.»
Arriving at the fag-end of a summer teeming with gruelling festival weekends, Bestival has enough gusto and idiosyncrasy to more than stand up for itself.»
It’s perpetually 1972 at Kutsher’s Country Club, the utterly perfect location for the New York incarnation of ATP. The event may attract several generations of indie rock fan, but for the people who run the resort this is no different to a local weddi»
This year's Offset took place, as always, in Hainault Forest and it would have been rude to turn down the opportunity to see the likes of Let's Wrestle, Damo Suzuki, The Horrors, Future of the Left, Pulled Apart By Horses, Wild Beasts, The xx and about a hundred or so others.»
Green Man 2009 finally saw the sun shine gloriously upon its little corner of the Brecon Beacons, heralding an extraordinary assemblage of talent and perhaps its finest year yet. DiS had a ball...»
It was with a mixture of near-crippling shame and childish glee that DiS accepted Polish musician and festival organiser Artur Rojek’s invitation to come out to the fourth edition of his OFF Festival, held in the town of Myslowice in Poland’s mining h»
So, it's that time of year again that the major festival season draws to a close, and while sister site Reading is viewed as the (slightly) more mature of the two, Leeds has often been renowned for bowing out in a blaze of glory...literally.»
V Festival - or the Virgin Media Festival to give it its correct title - may be the least favoured of its kind as far as music connoisseurs are concerned. A quick flick through the line-up doesn't exactly set pulses racing, as bland non-entities like The Script and Paolo Nutini rub shoulders with has-beens whose sell-by date expired over a decade ago (Ocean Colour Scene, Happy Mondays). However, cast all snobbery to one side for two days and delve a little deeper into the mixing pot and there are actually several gems to be found along with moments of real inspiration here. »
This weekend sees DiS hotfoot it to Wales for 2009's Green Man Festival and boy, we can't wait. Here's a Spotify Playlist celebrating some of the festival's finest, as well as a few words on some acts you might do well to take a punt upon and the festival itself...»
While there are those who’ll merrily hold court for hours over how much the British festival scene has changed over the last 20 years or so, the erection of a fence near Pilton has got nothing on Poland, which has gone from Eastern Bloc austerity to gen»
Spurred on by the repeat mantra ‘there’s no way things can go wrong a THIRD year in a row', DiS’s Charles Ubaghs and Andrzej Lukowski headed down Victoria Park way last Saturday to sample the delights of this year’s capital-based Field Day festival. And barring some rain, things didn’t go wrong: bar queues? Nuh-uh. Lines for the toilet? Seemed pretty non-existent (or at least from a gruff, manly perspective). There were a few other issues, mentioned below, but here be our highlights.»
What with being a bunch of self-absorbed Sassenachs and the press pass being organised a bit last minute, we didn't get around to running Simon Jay Catling's review of T In The Park in any sort of timeframe likely to make anybody involved look professional. Sorry Simon! Sorry Scotland! Please don't hurt us.»
Capsule's best festival to date? We think it might be - certainly the Saturday of this year's Supersonic was as fine a run of music on a solitary day as we can remember in a jolly long while. Which means there is no room here to wax lyrical about awesome »
While it'll probably be nigh on time for the Apocalypse before consensus has finally been reached on whether Pitchfork represents the apotheosis of music journalism or everything wrong with everything, there's no denying that Ryan Schreiber and cohorts st»
It’s that time of year again when a couple of thousand sturdy souls overcome their groundless prejudices about the Midlands and head up to Britain’s second city for Capsule’s mighty Supersonic Festival»
To paraphrase Billy Piper, Latitude is pretty much honey to the b for the middle class legions of the DiS writing team, and thus it was in considerable numbers that we fell upon this year's edition of the idyllic Suffolk festival. Here are our reviewers' highlights.»
Ahead of next week's Shepherd's Bush Empire show and performances at Latitude and Oxygen, of Montreal linchpin Kevin Barnes talks about the festival experience, and why you should always take, along with your handwash and sunscreen, a mask. Plus, win tickets to the gig.»
Split across day and night, along with Primavera, the as-ever electronica tinged Sónar is up there with Spain's musical spectacles. DiS's man at Sónar Alex Baker took in the sounds and sights of the night-time Barcelona festival.»
Missed out on bagging a ticket to Glastonbury this year? Or, simply didn't want to fork our on the ticket price? Never fear, here's a crafty, credit-crunch friendly, guide to getting the most out of your sofa experience.»
This weekend sees the Dot To Dot Festival hit Bristol (Saturday 23rd) and Nottingham (Sunday 24th). DiS is rather excited as this year's line-up is arguably the best one yet, so with a little help from MySpace and YouTube, we've compiled a mega mixtape of the best of this year's artists.»
After a somewhat brutal weekend (musically and physically) at ATP Vs The Fans Part II, it was with some trepidation that DiS loins were re-girded for its sister weekend. But actually we had a quite lovely time; maybe it was the more cohesive line up begat from having a proper curator; maybe it was something to do with it being sold out; probably it wasn’t the uber-tetchy security (um, did they spend so long looking over the top of the girls’ cubicles as the gents’?); whatever the case, a fine weekend, and one of the better overtly indie editions.»
Ahhh The Great Escape, the annual fish 'n' chips 'n' bands funfest beside the seaside. DiS has compiled a fifty-five track companion playlist of acts performing at the event. »
DiS has compiled a couple of Spotify mixtapes by way of preview/giving you a taste of some bands you may not have heard of/confirming the prejudices of people not going.»
The festival no-longer-the-Carling-Weekend has confirmed names for 2009!»
This year's Dot To Dot lineup is looking even sweeter than usual, with a slew of recent DiS-approved confirmations.»
The final instalment in our 2009 Festival Guide series takes a train out to the coast to cast an eye over Bloc, Loop, Latitude and the two UK ATPs.»
Having covered nearly all of the summer's best festivals from both home and abroad in this week's previews, it's been left to DiS' man in the Midlands to focus on the fun a little bit closer to home - literally - on three eye-catching events all taking place in the East Midlands later this year. »
The penultimate part of our 2009 Festival Guide deals with some of the summer's behemoths: Roskilde, Lollapalooza, Reading and Leeds, Bonnaroo and Glastonbury.»
If you’re serious about your heavy music, you’ve been following all the lineup releases already and you’ve started thinking which of the three summer festivals you’ll be attending and while it was relatively simple last year, the addition of Sonisphere to the list just makes the decision that bit more difficult explains Thrash Hits' editor Raziq Rauf.»