StrangeForms 10 – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Has it been a good weekend? Hell, yes! Has it been ‘tenth anniversary special’ good? Yes, I believe it has. Lots of good new bands, and some quality returnees. It’s hard to see how it could have been better. Stewart and the team have, I think, outdone themselves this year.
FOCUS Wales 2025
You always come away from FOCUS Wales thinking how on earth can they top that yet every year the organisers find new ways to keep the festival growing. It’s quite simply one of the best festivals out there right now. Until next year!
Chaos Theory Festival Day 2 – The Underworld, Camden
Chaos Theory Music, the London-based promoters, are celebrating fifteen years of curating “new music for open minds” by bringing together a suitably eclectic selection of bands to fill the sacred subterranean chambers of the Camden Underworld on this unseasonably hot winter day. It’s the second day of their big annual bash, which kicked off last weekend at Signature Brew in Walthamstow.
StrangeForms – A (Not So) Strange History… Part 2
Well, there it is. I said at the beginning that I was going to take a close-ish look at the first StrangeForms, and then just wing it from there, and that’s what I’ve done. . . I think you should seriously consider spending a relatively small number of your Earth Pounds on a ticket, or tickets, for StrangeForms 2025.
StrangeForms – A (Not So) Strange History… Part 1
STRANGEFORMS FEST will be 10 this spring. That, I think, deserves some kind of retrospective thingy. A look back, if you will. I have no idea whether or not anybody else is going to do it but somebody has to, even if that somebody is me. So, yeah, here it is.
Festival Review – Rockaway Beach 2025
For its birthday year (not yet a teenager) Rockaway Beach cemented so many of the things that has made it one of my annual unmissables, and pushed it forward into exciting new places. It’s mix of nostalgia and zeitgeist-catching new acts has earned its place in the upper echelons of music festivals, and may it stay there for many years to come.
Supersonic Festival 2024 – Sunday
Sunday at Supersonic: stages full of smoke and a long soak in folk. . . with a bouzouki and balloons to finish.
Saturday at Supersonic Festival
The day begins with the disappointing news that Atlanta hardcore team Upchuck. . . aren’t going to make it, tipping today’s line-up even further in favour of duos. Quite a selection today, all making a heck of a racket with just two people. The rise of the duo intrigues me; are the reasons technological, logistical, financial or even cultural?
Supersonic Festival 2024 – Friday
Friday includes the sitting room of a haunted cottage, the incantations of Welsh witches, fluoro-badgers in hoodies roaming the streets, noise-rock anime super heroes, and samosas for starters.
Festival Review: Core Festival 2024
David Bowes was at Glasgow’s recent Core. Festival and gives his overview of the bands he watched during the long weekend.
