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Festivals To Look Forward To In 2018

The recently announced welcome return of Long Division to the festival calendar (pleasingly coming back over June 1st-3rd) has prompted us to think about what other events there are to look forward to in 2018.

Having taken a year off in 2017 Rockaway Beach returns to the Bognor Regis Butlin’s over January 12-14 & features The Horrors, The Orb, Wild Beasts, Honeyblood, Alabama 3 & a host of other acts. It could be just what you need to get back into the swing of things after the Xmas excesses. Prices currently start at £79 per person for room-only accommodation for the entire three-night festival – for more details click here.

Midway through spring Hipsville returns to Margate's Dreamland on 04-06 May. We’ve not managed to attend since the first one so it’s high time we remedied that.

June will be jam packed, what with Long Division at the start, Beaches Brew back at the Hana Bi in Marina di Ravenna and Edinburgh’s Franklin Fest seeing in its fourth year from 28 to 30 June.

Staying in Scotland, August will see Doune The Rabbit Hole once again set up shop by The Lake of Menteith. This is another event where a few years have elapsed since we last attended so it’ll be interesting to see what sort of beast it’s become.

Later in the year Iceland Airwaves returns over 07-10 November for its 20th year. Earlybird tickets are already on sale for £115 or so. Further details here.

Further updates on all of the above will feature on Musos’ Guide in the months ahead & no doubt other events will take our fancy and get the attention they deserve too.

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Beaches Brew 2014, Hana Bi, Marina Di Ravenna

  • Published in Live

Beaches Brew is now in its third year and, like last month's Threadfest event in Bradford, is a free festival. Albeit on a beach in Italy rather than in a wet West Yorkshire city.

A small concern, in terms of location and the overall number of acts on the bill, it nevertheless aims high with the level of bands it attracts (a feature of all the summer shows being put on at the venue by Bronson Productions it seems). This year's headliners being Lee Ranaldo & The Dust, Suuns and Neutral Milk Hotel.

What let things down a bit this time around, however, was the rather sparse information on the event website. Stronger advice to stay by the venue rather than in the town of Ravenna itself would have been of use, as well as a proper paragraph about the local buses (of the three mentioned the 60 no longer seems to run and the latest one for a return to town is only at 22:00, making it impossible to see the later bands if you have catch that).

Still, after taking the site's information at face value, I hopped on a bus on the first night (a Tuesday, oddly enough) and arrived in good time to catch Speedy Ortiz opening up the show. Pleased to be playing their first show in Italy their set included such numbers as 'Basketball' and 'Cloud' and they were pleasingly louder and edgier than expected from their recorded work. Disappears were up next and, other minor faults aside, it was clear that with each night's show needing to end by midnight there was to be no messing about in terms of getting bands on stage on time. Theirs was a solid set with no flab as they aimed to fit in as many tracks as possible in their 45 minute or so slot. Pond were to play third on the bill & were one of the bands I was keenest to see but by that point the final 75 bus of the night was due so they and Lee Ranaldo's performances had to be missed.

Determined to see the whole of Wednesday night's bill & with a Twitter appeal for a lift meeting with no luck a bike was obtained and the 20 mile round-trip undertaken that way. With no stage times available openers Be Forest ended up being missed & so Dutch trio Hallo Venray ended up becoming tonight's first entertainers. Bringing to mind bands such as Redd Kross these veterans of Holland's indie rock scene attracted a good pre-sunset crowd with 'Simple' and 'Leather On My Soul' (the title track from their current album) amongst others. Swearing At Motorists soon followed, bringing a shift of tempo with their guitar & drums blend of blues & garage lending them a two man JSBX feel. Playing "a bunch of sad and angry songs" the pair overcame a lack of vocals in the monitors and a lack of beer to deliver a fun performance that included singer Dave Doughman stagediving in between songs from across the band's 20 year career. 

Wednesday's penultimate band were relative youngsters Cloud Nothings so the tempo was cranked up a further notch as they powered through selections from current album Here And Nowhere Else and its three predecessors. the crowd were well warmed up by this point in the night and the speed of the songs they were now getting to hear caused them to form a small mosh pit and indulge in some crowd surfing whilst I found myself concentrating on drummer Jayson Gerycz and his windmill-like pulverising of his kit. Closing out with something like a ten minute plus track the crowd were very sorry to see them go. Tonight's final act were Suuns so things onstage calmed down somewhat although the crowd were as appreciative as ever, clearly having eagerly anticipated the arrival of the Montreal quartet to the stage. '2020' got an early outing in the set and from then on the audience were putty in the band's hands. A thoroughly good night of free entertainment and my lack of any bike lights thankfully didn't get me killed as I pedaled back to base. 

That was though my final involvement with Beaches Brew this time around. A lift fell through the following night, taxis weren't a cheap option and the cycle was easy enough one night but not something to be repeated so soon. I'll make the trip back in 2015 and can on the whole recommend that you do too but camp over the road from Hana Bi or get a room close by otherwise, if you're not driving, the free entertainment could become as expensive as any other festival which kind of defeats the purpose.

Many thanks to Roberta for being a great host and for the loan of the bicycle.    

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