the great outdoors

Wychwood Festival @ Cheltenham Racecourse, 30th May-1st June

Yay. Festivals. We like them. Even if we stay in a wussy B&B instead of braving it with the campers...

Some of the highlights of the weekend:

- The Blockheads - can still cut some rug but who was that Ian-Dury-a-like swigging whisky and forgetting the words?
- Rachel Unthank - even if I left after three songs to go and see...
- Emma Pollock (pictured) - why did these great songs get such a lukewarm reception?
- Duffy - purely on the strength of that long sustained note towards the end of "Warwick Avenue"
- Imagined Village - I'll have some of what Eliza Carthy is having...
- The Divine Comedy - I'd forgotten I knew all these songs
- Dengue Fever - woman lead singing in Cambodian backed with LA 60s psychedelic-rock: it shouldn't work but it somehow does
- Misty's Big Adventure
- The Black Bloc

Plus:
- What the Independendent made of it all

Our roving youtube reporter gives it the hard sell: