tue 20/05/2025

festivals

The Great Escape Festival 2025, Brighton review - a feast of music from across the world

Photographer Finetime and I have our first pints outside Dalton’s, a bar on Brighton seafront, at almost exactly midday. They are Beavertown Neck Oil IPA at 4.3%. The sun is out, glinting off the sea. Feels like the calm before the storm.Quarter of...

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The Great Escape Festival 2025, Brighton review - a dip into Thursday

As every social space in Brighton once again transforms into a mire of self-important music biz sorts loudly bellowing about “waterfalling on Spotify”, it’s also a great time for those who relish gigs by new talent from all over the world. For three...

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Tallinn Music Week 2025 review - Estonia’s capital accommodates all flavours of music

Langenu are a black metal band. On stage at Estonia’s Tallinn Music Week, they are fearsome. Blood-vessel-burstingly intense. Tempering their force with twists into progressive, psychedelic-adjacent territory, they are a band any rock fan would dig....

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Fat Dog, Chalk, Brighton review - a frenetic techno-rock juggernaut

Ro first saw Fat Dog, before anyone had heard of them, at the Windmill in Brixton in front of a crowd of about 25 people. Their manic energy blew her head off. Vanessa and Al K first caught Fat Dog at the Rockaway Beach Weekender in Bognor Regis...

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Northern Winter Beat 2025, Aalborg review - The Courettes, Dungen and Lubomyr Melnyk confront ideas of how to play

The exhortations don’t seem necessary as the audience is already letting off the steam which has built up in anticipation of a full-bore show. Nonetheless, The Courettes’ Flávia Couri knows higher levels of excitement are there to be tapped, that it...

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theartsdesk at Wexford Festival Opera - let's make three operas

Name three operas framing dramas within, and you’d probably come up with Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos and Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges. You might be harder pressed to come up with three more, but Wexford Festival...

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Supersonic Festival 2024, Birmingham review - another fine musical celebration far away from the mainstream

I’ve been a regular attender of the Supersonic Festival for about 15 years and much has changed in that time. When I first rocked up to see Swans, Stinky Wizzleteat, PCM and other sonic treats, the event was a bit of a white boys’ club, both in...

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Reading Festival 2024, Day Two review - Fontaines DC, Raye and Lana del Rey

The sun coming out for our festival-organised boat shuttle down the Thames was relief indeed, as we ditched the wellies and reached for the Crocs on our way into the arena.Saturday afternoon was a melee of young folk, festering in the mire of their...

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theartsdesk in Switzerland: Lucerne and Gstaad offer curious audiences fresh perspectives on much-loved works

The summer festival circuit in Central Europe can be a bit of a merry-go-round. Notices in festival towns promise world-class orchestras and soloists, but they are usually the same performers, making festival appearances as part of broader touring...

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Reading Festival 2024, Day One review - an eclectic line up and a perfect headline set

Reading Festival’s 2024 line up was the embodiment of playlist culture. Once a key contender in the UK’s Rock and Alternative market, then a rite of passage for students partying their way into their first year of university, it’s fair to say that...

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We Out Here Festival 2024 review - generations of weirdness and wonder

I won’t give it loads about the atmosphere and attendees at We Out Here – suffice to say that in its fifth edition, it has maintained all the strengths I mentioned last year, with the added benefit of slicker-operating infrastructure having ironed...

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Medicine Festival review - sound and music healing in the depths of Berkshire

I had been softened up for the Medicine Festival by a recent visit to the global music extravaganza WOMAD – a trio of us met a guy called Paul aka SpriITman – an ex-IT expert who after a health crisis realised he was a healer. Bear with me on this....

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