Festival Chatter

[davidmjs]

Beautiful Days line up just announced - including Richard Thompson Electric Trio, Suzanne Vega , Manic Street Preachers. 3DM, Feeder, British Sea Power and others.

Decent that.

Skids, Dreadzone, Oysterband amongst those others...and one headliner still to come.  Nice.

[Bridgwit (Bridget)]

Beautiful Days line up just announced - including Richard Thompson Electric Trio, Suzanne Vega , Manic Street Preachers. 3DM, Feeder, British Sea Power and others.

Decent that.

Skids, Dreadzone, Oysterband amongst those others...and one headliner still to come.  Nice.

Cracking line up! Puts Cropredy to shame  

[davidmjs]

Beautiful Days line up just announced - including Richard Thompson Electric Trio, Suzanne Vega , Manic Street Preachers. 3DM, Feeder, British Sea Power and others.

Decent that.

Skids, Dreadzone, Oysterband amongst those others...and one headliner still to come.  Nice.

Cracking line up! Puts Cropredy to shame  

Multiple stages.  It's not comparing like with like.  Cropredy is very much a beast from the past in that regard.

[Shane (Skirky)]

Multiple stages.  It's not comparing like with like.  Cropredy is very much a beast from the past in that regard.

Similar capacity, no sponsorship. How do they do it..?

[Field 7 is Heaven (Trev)]

It's probably just me but I don't go to multi stage festivals.

The clash between the Brasenose and the field is painful enough.I am already causing myself grief by trying to think out a way to be both on the field for Fairport opening the 2018 Cropredy and at The brasenose for one of my favourite Bands ,Merry Hell.

I have a heart condition and I will be risking my life running up the lane to the Brasenose.

It's why I didn't enjoy my one trip to Butlins. Watching one of the best Fairport gigs ever,(imho) was somehow spoiled by knowing I was missing Steeleye Span playing 200 yards away.

The Beautiful Days concept is too Glastonbury ish for me. Please don't ever change Cropredy in that way.

[Nick]

Apart from Cropredy (and ignoring the fringe), are there any other single stage festivals running?

In my ideal world, Cropredy would give Field 2 over to be a second arena field ... put a marquee or two on there and a further selection of stalls and entertainments. It would add to the diversity of the festival (and would certainly 'alter the dynamic' of the Thursday 5am traffic 'fun' that people like to get involved in!   )

Cheers

Nick

[davidmjs]

Apart from Cropredy (and ignoring the fringe), are there any other single stage festivals running?

I can't think of any (apart from real micro-festivals catering for a couple of hundred or so).

[Gouty (Gary)]

One thing Beautiful Days has that Cropredy - as a single stage festival - now sorely lacks is space. There are loads of places to sit and stretch out, minimal queues at the bars, food stalls and toilets, and more places to shelter from the rain and sun. You may have to make the odd hard decision if acts clash, but, on the plus side, there are no claustrophobia inducing bottlenecks like the one in front of the Radio Oxford tent last year. And without all the rows of chairs and the 'this is our piece of field' mob, the atmosphere is far less attritional than might have been experienced at Cropredy in recent years. Not saying it's better, just different, with the attendant pros and cons. And, unlike Glastonbury, its relatively small scale makes it all very do-able.

[Albie]

It's probably just me but I don't go to multi stage festivals.

The clash between the Brasenose and the field is painful enough.I am already causing myself grief by trying to think out a way to be both on the field for Fairport opening the 2018 Cropredy and at The brasenose for one of my favourite Bands ,Merry Hell.

I have a heart condition and I will be risking my life running up the lane to the Brasenose.

It's why I didn't enjoy my one trip to Butlins. Watching one of the best Fairport gigs ever,(imho) was somehow spoiled by knowing I was missing Steeleye Span playing 200 yards away.

The Beautiful Days concept is too Glastonbury ish for me. Please don't ever change Cropredy in that way.

I look at it completely the other way. If I go to somewhere like Beautiful Days and miss a band I really like because I'm watching another band I really like, then that means it must be a great festival. The more great bands I miss, the better.    Well, makes sense to me anyhoo.  

Clashes can be disappointing maybe, but I'd rather have that than no alternative when the likes of Digance or Bellowhead or 10CC are on stage.  BD is great value for money in my opinion.

[Bridgwit (Bridget)]

It's probably just me but I don't go to multi stage festivals.

The clash between the Brasenose and the field is painful enough.I am already causing myself grief by trying to think out a way to be both on the field for Fairport opening the 2018 Cropredy and at The brasenose for one of my favourite Bands ,Merry Hell.

I have a heart condition and I will be risking my life running up the lane to the Brasenose.

It's why I didn't enjoy my one trip to Butlins. Watching one of the best Fairport gigs ever,(imho) was somehow spoiled by knowing I was missing Steeleye Span playing 200 yards away.

The Beautiful Days concept is too Glastonbury ish for me. Please don't ever change Cropredy in that way.

I look at it completely the other way. If I go to somewhere like Beautiful Days and miss a band I really like because I'm watching another band I really like, then that means it must be a great festival. The more great bands I miss, the better.    Well, makes sense to me anyhoo.  

Clashes can be disappointing maybe, but I'd rather have that than no alternative when the likes of Digance or Bellowhead or 10CC are on stage.  BD is great value for money in my opinion.

Ain't it funny! Bellowhead, Digance and 10CC are a few of the reasons I've gone to Cropredy in the past! The Levellers would put me off BDs....

[Nick Reg]

One of the pluses at Shrewsbury is that a lot of the acts play twice. (As long as its not Bellowhead   )

[Bridgwit (Bridget)]

One of the pluses at Shrewsbury is that a lot of the acts play twice. (As long as its not Bellowhead   )

You're OK NickReg they are no more! You can relax  

[Nick Reg]

One of the pluses at Shrewsbury is that a lot of the acts play twice. (As long as its not Bellowhead   )

You're OK NickReg they are no more! You can relax  

Yes but the silly man is on at Shrewsbury! He's even on up the road next month.

[Jim G]

The thing I like about Cropredy is the single stage. Set yourself down for the day have a wander when there is something you are less fond of performing.  
Only conflict I have ever had is when Kangaroo Moon were playing at the fringe same time as the Travelling Band. K M won.

I would have  had a conflict between Merry Hell and Fairport this year but we going  to Beautiful Days this year as Richard Thompson is there.and I have tickets for Merry Hell at the Lyme Regis folk festival in September and Fairport in Bridport in Juneso I wont miss out.

[Albie]

The thing I like about Cropredy is the single stage.

I think where Croppers does score for me is with the time bands get on stage. So bands which are new to (the majority of) the audience, Dixie Bee Liners or Travelling Band for instance, get an hour which gives them a chance to really kick bottom in front of a big crowd. At other places "unknowns" might be tucked away on a smaller stage playing to a few hundred, if that, for 30 minutes or sometimes less, and by the time you realise what a spiffing time you are having they are saying "this is our last song".  

So, only at Croppers could The Trav Band, Dixie Bee Liners or Pierce Brothers have made such an impression, because elsewhere a lot of the crowd would have been doing other stuff, and they couldn't really have got into their stride with a longish set, watched by thousands, not as "unknowns".

Does this make sense?

[davidmjs]

I haven't been to Cropredy since 2010, so its possible that this view is entirely out of date and everybody has since developed an attentiveness normally reserved for a performance of 4'33'', but for most artists, most of the time, virtually nobody outside of what might be called the 'mosh pit area' is what Robert Fripp might call acting as an "attentive audient".  It's just background music most of the time.  That's where multi staged festivals win out in my book.  You have more frantic areas (with much less seating so people are generally standing or dancing) and you also have quieter areas where people are more attentive and listening to less frenetic music in a more attentive manner...and in between you have the milling around and the sitting and drinking and talking bollox.  Green Man would be (my) perfect example of this but other examples (BD etc.) are available.  Horses for courses, of course, and I'm not slagging Cropredy off - I just think it rather unusual and the format doesn't help with presenting much music which many of the audience would enjoy (acoustic, quiet etc).  And, sadly, I don't think I know of any other gathering of so many people paying so much money for a music event where so many seem so unengaged with the reason why they are actually there...

[John From Austin]

I don't think I know of any other gathering of so many people paying so much money for a music event where so many seem so unengaged with the reason why they are actually there...

Lately, I've observed this phenomenon at almost every show I've attended, festival or otherwise.  

[davidmjs]

I don't think I know of any other gathering of so many people paying so much money for a music event where so many seem so unengaged with the reason why they are actually there...

Lately, I've observed this phenomenon at almost every show I've attended, festival or otherwise.  

And it seems to be a cast iron rule that the higher the cost of tickets for the event, the less engaged one is!  Odd.  So, yeah, I agree with the generalising of the point...but there is also a very specific issue with Cropredy, with the single stage, with the 'sitting in one space with my enormous chair and my enormous picnic for the whole day' kind of scenario.....I think, anyway.

[Bridgwit (Bridget)]

I haven't been to Cropredy since 2010, so its possible that this view is entirely out of date and everybody has since developed an attentiveness normally reserved for a performance of 4'33'', but for most artists, most of the time, virtually nobody outside of what might be called the 'mosh pit area' is what Robert Fripp might call acting as an "attentive audient".  It's just background music most of the time.  That's where multi staged festivals win out in my book.  You have more frantic areas (with much less seating so people are generally standing or dancing) and you also have quieter areas where people are more attentive and listening to less frenetic music in a more attentive manner...and in between you have the milling around and the sitting and drinking and talking bollox.  Green Man would be (my) perfect example of this but other examples (BD etc.) are available.  Horses for courses, of course, and I'm not slagging Cropredy off - I just think it rather unusual and the format doesn't help with presenting much music which many of the audience would enjoy (acoustic, quiet etc).  And, sadly, I don't think I know of any other gathering of so many people paying so much money for a music event where so many seem so unengaged with the reason why they are actually there...

I can see where you're coming from with this and it does seem the further you go up the field, the less attention people are playing to the artist. That said, a lot more people are engaged than not. I often see groups dancing from way behind the sound tower, and (I know some won't like this) Digance has the whole crowd going with his humour and "audience participation". If the band on stage is a bit quiet and, well, boring (I won't single anyone out) then the level of conversation does tend to increase. But if the band is a crowd pleaser (Peatbog Faeries doing disco) everyone is on their feet. Same with Dreadzone, Edward II and a few others "daytime" acts.
I do wonder though why some people find their spot on the field and then totally ignore (or seem to) everything that's on the stage. I've seen it in the "trendier" music venues too. I think it's rude!

[Tony Pim]

Wow - so many good points going on here.

Talking at gigs.. 2 weeks ago went to see Stereophonics at MEN. 20,000 fully engaged individuals loads of singing and dancing - I love Kelly and the boys and this was the best I've ever seen them.  The next night at a 300 capacity venue a Pink Floyd tribute act,  they were brilliant but almost ruined by a handful,  not talking but shouting at each other through the songs.  Why do they go ??

Single stage v Multi Stage festivals.. I get all the points, generally I prefer the multi stage (BDs and Green Man both excellent but Bearded Theory is the best for me) but you do tend to dip in and out, whereas at Cropredy you either engage or switch off.

I do love the whole village thing at Cropredy, can't wait to see what they do with the scarecrows this year.  Set ourselves the challenge of a drink in every bar to be back on the field by 2pm so that's Brasenose, Red Lion, Cricket Club , Edge, Field , Field 8.  Smashed it ! yet I equally love the more mobile and more friendly feel of the multi stage festivals.

Am thinking of doing the Cerys Matthews festival in North Wales - anyone ever been ?  sounds right up my street.