Creamfields 2011 lineup – the countdown has begun!

 Festivals, Gigs, Music  No Responses »
Mar 062011
 

It’s that time of year again! The Creamfields lineup was announced on Annie Mac’s Friday night Radio 1 show – and it looks pretty damn promising.

Festival regulars such as Tiesto, David Guetta and Calvin Harris are to be joined by the likes of Laidback Luke, Magnetic Man, Erol Alkan and last but definitely not least – The Chemical Brothers!  Very exciting :D

After putting on an awesome show last year, the Swedish House Mafia tent is back on the Sunday this year – with SHM headlining themselves.  Annie Mac will also have her own tent again this year and will be the headline act – I’m aiming to get there early this year as the crowd was bulging out of the tent for her awesome set and laser show last year.  Some other personal highlights lined up for the weekend: Example , Chicane and Skrillex – looking forward to em all.

Tiesto is (currently) down to headline the Clublife tent on the Saturday after closing the festival on the Main Stage in front of a massive crowd last year.  I hope his set and The Chemical Brothers (who are headlining the North Stage) don’t overlap.

According to the Creamfields website there are some more acts to be announced, including on the North Stage for the Sunday.  I am hoping that another big act is announced play out the weekend there (fingers crossed for Daft Punk at the moment – would make the best weekend ever!).

Needless to say after the lineup announcement the F5 spamming started over at ticketline.com waiting for tickets to go on sale.  We did okay and it didn’t take long before we had parted with a fair chunk of cash to secure our place.  So now all that’s left to do is get excited :D

A countdown to the festival has been added to the front page of the website so that I (and you) will keep getting reminded that it isn’t far away.  My Spotify playlist with my favourite tracks from the artists at the festival is now under construction – I’ll post more about it when there’s some progress.

Ciao for now!

Mogwai + The Twilight Sad – Cardiff Union – 18/02/11

 Gigs, Music  No Responses »
Feb 192011
 

Mogwai have been a staple in my music collection for a few years now, and they’ve always been close to the top of my ‘must see’ list.  They didn’t disappoint.

The Twilight Sad have been a rather recent (but extremely welcome) addition – ever since I heard they were supporting to be honest.  They’re rapturous music with stunning, gritty vocals (with accent in tact) make them definitely worth a listen.  They’re set was burdened by the fact that the sound system was blatantly not set up for them; a great shame as they gave an energetic, emotional performance.  The drummer, Mark Devine, was manning the merch stall afterwards and was getting a lot of praise.  I’m glad, because the crowd didn’t seem to get all that in to it – and they were getting heckles from some (rather drunk) people behind me.

Mogwai didn’t have sound system problems – they sounded awesome.  All but for the vocals on Mexican Grand Prix, their third encore song.  While I can recognise songs, I can never tell you what they’re called, so I can’t give specifics, but they were very tight.  Impressively so, given the complexity of their particular brand of music.  Two disappointments, no Mogwai Fear Satan or Glasgow Mega-Snake (though I thought they played this, I was mistaken…again with the rubbish with the names thing).

All in all, good times had by all I think – ‘cept £3.50 for a crappy bottle of Fosters…that was a joke!  We got pretty close to the front for Mogwai’s set – was easily done as it wasn’t a ‘mosh-pit’ style gig.  We were surrounded by pricks for the second half of their set, who tried to get the crowd to ‘dance more’ despite having no rhythm.  There’s always one or two…and they tend to always find me.

For those interested the setlist is here.