Welcome…

Wel­come to Gourmet Gigs. Our focus and dri­ving pas­sion is on new and emerg­ing artists, sup­port­ing local grass­roots venues, and fes­ti­vals, espe­cial­ly inde­pen­dent ones, try­ing to sur­vive in today’s dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic climate.

Check out gourmet­gigs’ Ulti­mate Sum­mer Fes­ti­val guide! We’ve includ­ed two very wel­come returnees: WOMAD, and Found, which used to be the well-loved com­mu­ni­ty folk-based event Tow­ersey. And we’re glad to fea­ture inde­pen­dent fes­ti­vals which don’t have an easy time of things at the moment. It’s a pre­car­i­ous, unpre­dictable busi­ness to be in, but there’s plen­ty of pas­sion and ded­i­ca­tion too.

Not every­one has the time or the mon­ey for the whole 3/4‑day camp­ing expe­ri­ence. Day fes­ti­vals are becom­ing increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar, and are less tax­ing on the envi­ron­ment (no aban­doned tents). As there’s been an increas­ing num­ber of them, we’ve put togeth­er a Day Fes­ti­vals list too. A num­ber of day fests are in urban parks and, while they are wel­comed by many (and by local coun­cils who are all in need of a funds boost), there are also con­cerned groups of locals who are anti such events. They cite dis­rup­tion, noise pol­lu­tion and destruc­tion of the grounds – apart from dis­turb­ing wildlife. It’s a dilem­ma which is only set to esca­late as city fes­ti­vals increase in num­ber. What are your feel­ings about this issue?

Pho­tos below of a great Q&A with Chris Dif­ford, Glenn Tilbrook and their bass play­er Oliv­er Bid­dle, to hear tracks from their album Trix­ies, out now. The songs were com­posed when the Squeeze guys were in their teens. This ear­ly mate­r­i­al is in the form of a con­cept album about a fic­ti­tious night­club. Very Run­y­onesque – which is where the inspi­ra­tion came from. 

Grassroots Venue Watch…

As always, a note about grass­roots venues.. Music Venue Trust (MVT), the char­i­ty which rep­re­sents hun­dreds of Grass­roots Music Venues (GMVs), has called upon politi­cians from all par­ties to “seize the moment” and to help save the sec­tor from the deep­en­ing cri­sis. It has pub­lished a report enti­tled ‘A Man­i­festo for Grass­roots Music’, which sets out the steps that need to be tak­en in order to stem the clo­sures of GMVs, cur­rent­ly run­ning at more than one per week, and to bring sta­bil­i­ty to the sector.

I’ve been vis­it­ing more of our grass­roots venues and have recent­ly been to Future Yard in Birken­head, a love­ly and very friend­ly space with a good bar, out­side area and tasty look­ing piz­zas! Also The Drill in Lin­coln. The Drill is a large space with a wide, low stage and a lot of his­to­ry to it. Good to see these venues thriving.

Our history

Gourmet Gigs began on June 3 2012 at Field Day fes­ti­val in Vic­to­ria Park where I saw the elu­sive Mazzy Star, review here. My first fes­ti­val was Bux­ton ‘Pop’ Fes­ti­val, in 1972, with DJ John Peel. It took place on a freez­ing cold moor. I remem­ber Roy Wood run­ning along the top of the stage. Or am I imag­in­ing that? We parked our tiny two-man tent on rocky ground almost in front of the stage. It was a life-chang­ing expe­ri­ence that set me up for a life­time of fes­ti­vals – although today’s metic­u­lous­ly organ­ised events are a very dif­fer­ent beast.

Please write for us…

Get in touch if you’d like to rec­om­mend bands, DJs, gigs, new releas­es, fes­ti­vals or venues. And also if you’d like to con­tribute and offer a guest blog piece – the chances are that we’ll say yes. Emails are checked on a dai­ly basis.

You can help Gourmet Gigs too…

The site is man­aged main­ly by me plus occa­sion­al guest writers. 

Please sup­port the site run­ning costs by giv­ing us a heads up on socials, mes­sag­ing and gen­er­al­ly spread­ing the word.

And… a big thank you to our guest bloggers.

Affiliate links…

We have a (very) few affil­i­ate links on the site for tick­et pur­chas­es. Please sup­port us and click through our tick­et link. It costs you the same… and it helps us to keep going. Thank you!

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