festivals
Lammermuir Festival 2025, Part 2 review - from the soaringly sublime to the zoologically ridiculousTuesday, 16 September 2025
My colleague Boyd Tonkin visited the Lammermuir Festival for the first time this year. His eyes and ears have been opened to its treasures, but some of us have been in on the secret for years. Importantly, that includes the East Lothian audiences,... Read more... |
Lammermuir Festival 2025 review - music with soul from the heart of East LothianWednesday, 10 September 2025
One piece that you’re unlikely to hear at the Lammermuir Festival is Lucia di Lammermoor. As co-director James Waters explained during a drive to the absurdly picturesque church and castle at Crichton (fit setting for a Netflix epic, let alone a... Read more... |
Supersonic Festival 2025, Birmingham review - a deep dive into the spectacularly weird and very wonderfulThursday, 04 September 2025
The annual Supersonic Festival is a major jewel in Birmingham’s musical crown – but not, it seems, one that is particularly valued by the city’s establishment and more powerful decision-makers. Based in the relatively bohemian area of Digbeth, and... Read more... |
Houghton / We Out Here festivals review - an ultra-marathon of community vibesFriday, 22 August 2025
The long, hot summer of 2025 has been something else, right? Hate rallies, creeping authoritarianism, a weird reluctance to discuss the extremity of the weather even as everyone scrambles to buy air conditioners...But also a slightly delirious sense... Read more... |
Wilderness Festival 2025 review - seriously delirious escapismThursday, 07 August 2025
Wilderness is the kind of festival where you can overhear a conversation about the philosophical implications of rewilding whilst queuing for Veuve Clicquot, or watch a man dressed as a vicar strip naked mid-cricket match without anyone blinking. It... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Pärnu Music Festival 2025 - Arvo Pärt at 90 flanked by lightness and warmthTuesday, 29 July 2025
Life-changing? That's how the Pärnu Music Festival felt on my first visit in 2015, alongside the discovery of Estonia as a pillar of the European Union ideal. It’s also how Palestinian Lamar Elias, a student on the annual conducting course,... Read more... |
The Human League/Marc Almond/Toyah, Brighton Beach review - affable 1980s-themed seaside packageThursday, 24 July 2025
Today gradually blossoms from unpromising beginnings. LouderUK’s On The Beach event series takes place throughout the summer and runs the gamut from indie pop-rock, such as Kaiser Chiefs and Bloc Party, to dance events featuring DJs such as Bonobo... Read more... |
The Estonian Song and Dance Celebration 2025 review - the mass expression of freedomThursday, 10 July 2025
The branch of the fast-food chain Hesburger in downtown Tallinn shopping centre Solaris is busy. Nothing unusual as it’s located by the entrance to a multi-screen cinema. Double cheeseburgers and fries are going over the counter. Less typically, two... Read more... |
Album: Barry Can't Swim - LonerSaturday, 05 July 2025
Despite being Mercury nominated, Bazza’s hardly a household name. Nevertheless, his debut album When Will We Land was highly praised by those in the know. I am definitely not in the know and am more or less a stranger to electro stuff – it... Read more... |
Glastonbury Festival 2025: Five Somerset summer days of music, controversy and beautiful mayhemFriday, 04 July 2025
MONDAY 30th JUNE 2025“I think you’d better drive,” says Finetime, his face sallow, skull-sockets underscored by dark brown rings. He looks peaky.“Why?” I enquire. Sweat nodules down my face, my body, everywhere. So saline-intense it leaves powdery... Read more... |
Album: HAIM - I QuitThursday, 19 June 2025
Haim’s profile just grows and grows. Since their last album, youngest sibling Alana’s starring role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s whimsical Seventies L.A. nostalgia-fest, Licorice Pizza, has done them no harm. I Quit is, the band says, thus titled... Read more... |
Hidden Door Festival 2025 review - the transformative Edinburgh event's most site-specific festival yetWednesday, 18 June 2025
"When I was your age, I worked in a corrugated cardboard factory!" is a phrase my father was fond of telling me as a teenager, presumably in an attempt to extol the virtues of a good Presbyterian work ethic.I wonder what he’d have made of his first... Read more... |
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