The Courteeners with All The Young at Delamere Forest 2.7.11 – review

The Courteeners live at Delamere Forest, Cheshire, with support from All The Young.

Saturday, 2nd July 2011.

My review of this alfresco show is now up on eFestivals, please find links below to review and pictures:

http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/foresttours/2011-courteeners/review-overview.shtml

http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/foresttours/2011-courteeners/galleries.shtml

A lively one to say the least; not to detract from the performance of either band, but crowd control issues marred this otherwise blissfully summery set for me.

shelleyhanveywriter.

Glastonbury coverage on the BBC

Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival

 I wasn’t one of the 177,500 festival folk that descended upon Pilton, Somerset last weekend, to witness the 40th Anniversary of the Glastonbury Festival, having opted to attend V, Cambridge Folk Festival and Creamfields. I did, however, very excitedly set the Sky Plus in order to record the BBC’s coverage of the four-day event. 

I have to say though, I found myself quite underwhelmed by said coverage and wondering where the clips of perhaps slightly less commercial acts had ended up…if indeed they were ever recorded. 

I fully understand that musical tastes are subjective to the viewer and that the BBC would have had a flood of complaints had they not featured the headliners and some of the bigger chart-residing artists, but being a contemporary arts festival; I just felt that the range of artists featured should have reflected that. 

I was looking forward to seeing a good range of artists, including new and fresh  offerings such as Everything Everything, Frightened Rabbit, Two Door Cinema Club, Devendra Banhart, Miike Snow, Lauren Pritchard as well as a few of my favourites; The Courteeners, Empire of the Sun and Laura Marling. 

Empire of the Sun

Everything Everything

Miike Snow

I also thought considering Florence and the Machine drew one of the biggest crowds of the festival, perhaps a couple of songs could have been featured from this artist; obviously reflecting their popularity at the festival and beyond. To be fair, extended highlights of Florence’s set are available on the BBC’s Glastonbury website, which can be found here: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/glastonbury/2010/artists/florenceandthemachine/ 

Again, a personal viewpoint only, but did we really need to see 7+ songs from Muse and likewise, Gorillaz? Would it not have been fairer to spread the coverage out a bit and give viewers more of a diverse taste of what was on offer…just a thought. 

It did look brilliant though and they were so lucky with the weather; I’m already crossing my fingers that V and Cambridge are blessed with the same! Although a couple of clouds would be nice, don’t want to be struck down with a bout of sunstroke, causing me to miss Macca join Fray (Liam, of The Courteeners) on stage for an impromptu sesh of Beatles classics…you never know!