The Chemical Brothers and Crazy P at Bluedot festival

The Chem­i­cal Broth­ers set ends Blue­dot fes­ti­val 2018 on a high note, and the hordes pack out the Lovell stage to hear the god­fa­thers of the electronic/dance scene; the sound so colos­sal and lasers so far-reach­ing you would think they were com­pet­ing with the Jodrell Bank tele­scope itself 

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Bluedot 2018: out of this world music and science mashup

Blue­dot fes­ti­val moves into its third year with its unique brand of music, sci­ence and space mashup. There is prob­a­bly no oth­er fes­ti­val like it: music fans can take their fill of sev­er­al stages and sci­ence geeks have a wealth talks and work­shops with experts, although its fair to say most fes­ti­val goers dip into…

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Turin Brakes live at the London Palladium: review

Turin Brakes know how to make the Lon­don Pal­la­di­um feel as inti­mate as a rough-and-ready base­ment pub venue. They start by intro­duc­ing songs from their brand new album. Over the next cou­ple of hours or so, the band take us on a jour­ney back and forth over the past 18 years, many mem­bers of the…

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Lost Map: Pictish Trail Daylight Music at Union Chapel

The Day­light Music ses­sions at Union Chapel in Isling­ton are gen­tle, pay-what-you-like lunchtime con­certs with tea and cake. There are around 30 ses­sions per year. This Sat­ur­day was the turn of artists on the Lost Map record label run from the remote Hebridean island of Eigg by John­ny Lynch, who per­forms as Pic­tish Trail. Lynch and…

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Gill Landry and Ian Felice at The Borderline

Gill Landry and Ian Felice at The Bor­der­line. The Bor­der­line used to be an endear­ing­ly scruffy lit­tle venue, not out of place amongst the shab­by streets around Soho. As devel­op­ment began in earnest, the base­ment venue became increas­ing­ly frag­ile look­ing so its smart over­haul in March this year is very wel­come, espe­cial­ly the cosy seating…

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Green Man festival 2017 review

This year was the 15th anniver­sary of Green Man, the bucol­ic fes­ti­val set in the Bre­con Bea­cons. It is – since the demise of Big Chill – my favourite fes­ti­val venue, with its lush moun­tain­ous set­ting and main stage framed dra­mat­i­cal­ly by the Black Moun­tains. For those short of stature (like myself), you’ll always have…

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Review: Leftfield at Bluedot festival

Review of Left­field ‘Left­ism’ at Blue­dot fes­ti­val, by Nicholas Mai “Come on Tom, let’s go and see some prop­er music”. And so the uncer­tain eight-year(ish) old boy duti­ful­ly fol­lows his father into the tent where Left­field are warm­ing up the crowd nice­ly as the first of the big name open­ing Fri­day acts at this year’s Bluedot…

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Review: Bearded Theory festival birthday bash

Beard­ed The­o­ry Spring Gath­er­ing or “fes­ti­val” as it is usu­al­ly called, has reached an impor­tant mile­stone – its tenth birth­day. The hairy-faced con­trib­u­tor to the fes­ti­val world has grown and blos­somed, from bum fluff through design­er stub­ble to full beard. The cel­e­bra­tions opened on a per­fect sun­ny Thurs­day after­noon with a sur­pris­ing­ly large crowd, per­haps due to the line­up being stuffed…

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