Music was my first love...

After the not very good Flaming Lips gig last year, I really did think I might never see another live band again. We considered going to Glastonbury again this year (quite a few of our friends are going) but then we realised we didn’t really fancy it that much – in my case I was mainly worried I’d be missing out on something. In the ‘are we too old for this festival lark’ conversation I talked about which bands we would actually want to see live – it wasn’t a very long list and many of the bands on it didn’t seem that likely to actually play anyway.

But then a few weeks ago I saw an ad in the Observer (how civilising and middle class we are now!) for the Connect Music Festival. The line-up was pretty close to my list of who we would go to a festival to see – Primal Scream (obviously), Jesus & Mary Chain (reformed with Bobby back on drums!), LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip and this bit I was stunned by, Big Star! All in the grounds of a castle by the a loch which looks stunning.



But there was still the issue of it being a festival which involves camping, tents and all sorts of other unnatural things ("if we were meant to camp, God wouldn’t have given us hotels", has always been my motto). I contacted every hotel, B&B and caravan park within the area but they were all booked already. So we were faced with the choice of camping or not going. So we are camping but deluxe camping, where the tent is already prepared for you complete with airbeds and new sleeping bags, so all we have to do is turn up. To soften the blow, we are staying a hotel in town the night before and then one night in Glasgow on the way back. Since we’ve bought the tickets, Polyphonic Spree and Modest Mouse (also from our list) have been added to the bill. I'm almost not dreading the camping now.


Then this week the line-up is announced for Jarvis Cocker's Meltdown - and he had Roky Erickson of the 13th Floor Elevators playing, supported by Clinic. Two more from the list! How good this will be remains to be seen as Roky has had a rather difficult past but I'm looking forward to it.

I'm not sure how much this counts as being back into music as most of these are reformed groups rather than new bands but I'm genuinely excited by it all.

I'm also quite keen on seeing Macbeth at the Open Air Theatre this summer, but I think I might have used up all of the OH's good will towards obscure cultural outings for a while.