Anyone attending festivals this year?

[Tuomas]

Hi there. I was thinking. There hasn't been much discussion on the music area froma fanboy point of view in a long time, if you know what I mean. My girlfriend just got back from a music festival and is headed this way. We're going to one two weeks from now, I've payed 85€ for 2 days at Ruisrock already.

First day, that's 4th, I'll be seeing at least Porcupine Tree and Nightwish. Porcupine Tree for me is worth the whole 85 € so I wouldn't mind leaving then. But if Nightwish plays after them, I must just go and see what they're like nowadays.

The second day then is all about local Finnish bands. I don't expect any of you to know them, aside fromt he Finns here Well, first, there's Herra Ylppö & Ihmiset, which I didn't even know of until my gf told me they're supposed to be good. Right after that we've got Scandinavian Music Group or SMG. Right after that I'll probably be seeing Opeth Though I'm not such a big fan. They have their good sides. And last but not least there's Von Hertzen Brothers. Of course there's plenty more, but these are the ones I really want to see. Opeth comes from Sweden, but the rest are Finnish, yeah.

I'm not sure if I'll get drawn into some others later this summer. I saw, that Björk is coming here too, on 10th of July, but I'm afraid I'm attending a local fest here in Tampere then, plus, it's a bit too expensive for my taste. I really hate being busy and poor. But still, the summer's full of opportunities, I'll just have to pick the best ones. What about you?

[Ishmael]

I was at Sauna Open Air the whole three days, saw Children of Bodom, Scorpions, Whitesnake, Sebastian Bach, and many others. Really enjoyed the whole thing, and just simply skipped the performers I didn't have any interest in seeing. I've heard complaints afterwards about people behaving the normal festival style around here (drunk as a lord, and rather noisy at it), but luckily I didn't run into any such people...

[Chrille]

I was hoping to visit the Roskilde-festival in Denmark or the Arvika-festival here in Sweden this year but I am unable to make either one. Instead I've bought tickets for Way Out West, the local festival here in Gothenburg in August just before Mittens. I am looking forward to (at least) Nick Cave's Grinderman, Iron & Wine, The National, Flaming Lips and some others. I just found out Neil Young has been booked as well! This is turning out even better than I had hoped! :)

[Dualnames]

I might actually end up seeing Maiden this year. I've been trying to for the last 10 years and something always happens..

[ThreeOhFour]

I caught Maiden live this year.

I planned to go to one festival but car troubles meant I ended up giving my ticket away. Hopefully some decent bands come by and visit so I can go and catch them - apparently Priest are coming later this year...

[Andail]

Yo Chrille
Just bought tickets for Way Out West, the Saturday-only pass.
Bands ready: The Flaming Lips, Fleet Foxes, Håkan Hellström, Joan As Police Woman, Lykke Li,
N.E.R.D, Neil Young, Sahara Hotnights, Silverbullit.
Will be pretty awesome.

[earlwood]

I'd like to attend Zappanale again this year, but I'm already short on cash without having to pay extra to fly to Germany with bulky camping supplies.  Didn't manage to go last year and missed out on Don Preston, Napoleon Murphy Brock, and  Chad Wackerman, but I ran into some English dudes on my flight there in 2006 and by tremendous coincidence they were going to the same festival, and had press passes to boot, Glee!  They managed to sneak me backstage where I hung out with some of the bands and took advantage of the cheap beer, I got to hug Adrian Belew (I'm a huge Zappa and King Crimson fan so I could hardly contain myself) and all the nice German people took pictures of me, assuming I was with Paul Green's School of Rock.

It was also the first time I had ever seen drunk Germans in Viking costumes, singing "Cosmic Debris" phonetically with alpenhorn accompaniment whilst prancing around a bonfire, it was truly a life altering experience.

[Chrille]

Adrian Belew is one of my favourite guitarists and singers. He seems like a very nice guy. The Adrian Belew Power Trio is on tour, I wish someone would book them to a club somewhere here in Gothenburg!

Petter, would be fun to see you there!

[ryanlandry]

I saw Maiden a few weeks ago at "Heavy MTL" (That's heavy Montreal...) a brand new festival here in Montreal. It was awesome. 3rd time I've seen them, but also was type o negative, mastodon, dethklok, 3 inches of blood, symphony X, hammerfall, overkill, and more. 11 hours of metal in 35 degree (celsius) heat, with lots of beer. was a good day.

[Tuomas]

Oh I wish I could see Adrian Belew play too.

Anyway, the festivals are over now, and I'm a bit exhausted. As I expected, Porcupine Tree was more than awesome, it's hard to describe.

Then, Scandinavian Music Group which was my second favourite totally played to the audience. Everyone was singing along and living the lyrics. You could see it from the musicians' faces, that they were really enjoying. These two gigs were the ones I expected the most, and both lived up to my expectations.

Also, I got bloody drunk several times, so yay. I'll be posting some topless pictures of me later on the long overdue (yeah, it was a bit hot, so no shirt on)

[Meowster]

Went to Glastonbury this year, it was absoluteellyyyy amazing. I wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was. It was my first music festival too... win!

Wondering what other music festivals in the UK are like it? It's gonna be hard to match up to glasto, but I'd like to go to another festival by the end of the year if possible... one with the same awesome hippy vibe...

[Stupot]

I normally do Reading but this year's line-up doesn't really warrant spending that sort of money.   I might be persuaded to go up on the Friday and catch RATM, but the more  think about it the less i care.. and I'm skint anyway, so I shouldn't even be thinking about it.

EDIT
Firefox doesn't recognize 'Skint' as a real word...

[PsychicHeart]

You folks should come over here to Aussieland sometime, we have some great music festivals.
At this year's Big Day Out we had RATM, BATTLES. I think Björk was attending but cancelled for some reason or another.
And then Soundwave, which I attended, was great too, we had The Offspring, Incubus, Killswitch Engage, Scary Kids Scaring Kids, Mindless Self Indulgence, eh.

In conclusion, our country r betterZ than urzzz!1!!eleven.