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This past 'Bank Holiday' Weekender-bender here in London I noticed that there have been at least 3 'festivals' from Friday to Sunday***:
Wide Awake, Gala (??) and Cross the Tracks. At least two apparently in one place: Brockwell Park. [Imagine the poor cleaners having to deal with the mission impossible to Purify the entire park full of cans and other multitude of festival trash in just 24 hours like....]
The other, which I have never heard of, was nearby - Peckham Rye.
***On Monday, a friend was even like doing a DJ set for a festival called 'City Splash' AGAIN happening in Brockwell Park, literally the day after.
In less than a week there will be another addition: SXSW festival for the first time ever on the English lands with an unmissable dj set by ERYKAH BADU, then brand-new 'Lido' with CHARLI XCX having the 3083568458947th party of the year,
then pops up of Pride gigs like Mighty Hoopla Festival,
then Southbank Meltdown under Little Slimz' curation,
then BTS Hyde Park with a rare performance by Stevie Wonder, then of course you go up north and you sneak in (with your mind) to Glastonbury or you can choose to fly to Primavera Sound in Porto (Barcelona is like off-limits due to the extremely-claustropho/Bi/c gay-panic there will be with headliners like CHAPPEL ROAN, SABRINA CARPENTER, CHARLI XCX (x3) ), then the classics 1-day-jamboree: All Points East, Wireless, Download Reading and Leeds and Electric Picnic.
The list in like endless and I cannot keep up.
Since 15 I have been the enthusiast concert-goer par excellence, imagining myself even someday to cross those amplifying stages, but now it feels like.... overwhelming?! Idk if this represents more opportunities for small artists but yeah it seems that there is too much on the roaster to even try to engage fully to any big event and it's a shame, because of the unfair pricing monopoly of ticketmaster/live nation I think all those new shows are made to grab lots of cash from the pockets of the Gen Z (big majority) who can barely afford even a fancy meal in a local cafe.
Mixed feeling on this, what do you reckon (from the East-to-West coast)?
May 27, 2025
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ala pitchfork, FORM, etc. Mainstream festivals give me anxiety!!
Apr 5, 2024
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In December 2017 I went to a local festival in my city that was one day only and I saw cage the elephant live and that was one of the best concert experiences I’ve had to this day. I also saw Green Day earlier that year (primarily to watch catfish and the bottlemen open for them) and I was really pleasantly surprised with how great of a show they put on.
When I moved to NYC the first concert I saw here was weyes blood, about six months after titanic rising came out, and it was one of the few times I’ve cried at a show. One of my first “post-Covid” shows was japanese breakfast at brooklyn steel, and that show just felt so whole and I think about it often.
I got to see IDLES’ sold out Bowery ballroom show earlier this year and that one was just so fun and memorable for me. Love a good mosh pit, love a room full of people who are all there because they love the artist/band just as much as you do. Julia Jacklin’s solo acoustic show earlier this year was hauntingly beautiful and it made me a bigger fan of her for sure.
Sorry this is 6 concerts but this is technically my top 10% so I think that’s good enough.
Aug 29, 2024
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last year i went to like about 1 concert per month, but they were mostly artists that i liked a lot but didn't absolutely love/were my favs but this year i don't have as many however all the ones i do have are artists that i adore!!! inhaler, pulp, charli, fontaines, bcnr and hopefully lorde and wolf alice and maaaaybe another inhaler gig????? if i can afford to go to liverpool at the end of the summer (pls pls pls)
3d ago
Top Recs from @jacquelinewilde22
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Just navigating for a moment my home/feed/timeline and I realized.... everything smeels like MySpace. Exciting fresh summer fruit air.
Was too young to even comprehend what was going on during the beginning of early 2000s (like most of u) and the only time I felt 'k00l' enough was when a random day on 2008 I signed up for Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. None of them were interesting enough to do much, except for posting pics/videos and write nonsense status about what was up in your baby-head.
At that point Myspace was long gone, buried in the silent internet black hole where you would just find all your """deleted""" embarassing moments and some uncrypted FBI cold cases files.
Now, in this post- T u m b l r and edulcorated saturation of Instagram & TikTok and commersalisation of 'being visually communicative', where can we find... our tribe, our forum, our sense of community 4real 4real > > > > this seems 2 b the place, or at leat A place to start. Just reading through all the recs I can see how everything reaches like-minded art-makers and tasters, without being too 'scene-keepers'.
This sounds like a homage, another type of ode, but it is coming from the depth of my heart, still seeking meaning between those digital coded lines, you know?!
Hopefully I am not wrong and I can meet up with many of you somewhere - NYC, LDN, anywhere our brainy music-geeks soul will bring us <3333
Feels like this is the beginning of a new chapter of my online presence, a post-adolescence virtual rebirth.
May 18, 2025
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It's simple as riding a bike (after first failed attempts), but you got to do it regularly, if you stop you might fall easy in that obnoxious spiral of guilt where you feel like .... you don't fit in, you just don't belong - that's not right. You don't know that for sure. You got to keep trying to go that film nite, that local bands roaster gig, that DIY grassroots-boost event, that book club, that poetry open mic, that comedy show, that open call set (??) - I mean just go with the flow until your social battery runs low and you got to U-turn to your 'bat cave'. Your presence can change somebody's vibes when you walk in and give it a chance. In LDN is extremely challenging, NYC I guess is quite chill and buzzy at the same time, but hey, yolo at the end.
May 18, 2025
There's nothing more vital than a song which transports you immediately to a place in time that did not even exist but you feel nostalgic about. That dream of youth,
of living everyday like a summer nite -
with your friends just hanging around
feeling the breeze down your spine
or f*ck it even on your own,
roller skating in an empty driveway.
All your past mistakes or bad decisions that led where you are right now seems vanished while you just swinging on the notes of his singing sadly, smoothly, sweetly words like: 'Tell me, whats wrong?'
May 18, 2025