S U M M E R F E S T S

M I D - R A N G E

u BESTIVAL M a r k R o n s o n

Henham Park, Southwold, Suffolk, Thu 16–Sun 19 Jul, weekend tickets around £200. An upmarket mix of music, comedy and posh family activities. The lineup p is reminiscent of the BBC 6 Music playlist Alt-J, Portishead, Laura Marling, SBTRKT and d so on while the comedy tent promises all the the usual male types off Mock the Week plus Josie sie Long, Sara Pascoe and Adam Hills with the gang gang from The Last Leg. We’re not saying it’s the most middle-class of all the festivals, but this year Gareth Malone is a special guest. 

Robin Hill Country Park, Isle of Wight, Thu 10– Sun 13 Sep, weekend tickets around £195. The festival season’s last hurrah. With a different fancy dress theme every year (this time it’s ‘Summer of Love’) and a heavy-hitting lineup of Underworld, the Chemical Brothers, Róisín Murphy, Jurassic 5, Future Islands, Charli XCX and, er, Duran Duran, it’s worth the trek.

FESTIVAL NUMBER 6 Various venues in Portmeirion, Gwynedd, Thu 3–Sun 6 Sep, weekend tickets around £150. A taste of the Mediterranean in deepest Wales, the Italianate village is where The Prisoner was filmed. It’s also the site of one of the hippest festivals of them all. Words like ‘curated’ and ‘bespoke’ abound in the event info. Headliners are Grace Jones, Belle and Sebastian, Young Fathers and Kate Tempest, but the real draws are the sandy beaches and eclectic surprises, from Welsh male-voice choirs to hidden poetry.

Strathallan Castle, Auchterarder, Str Fri 10–Sat 12 Jul, weekend Fri tickets around £194. Apart from a ti spiffy new venue this year, there’s s no point in telling you anything about T in the Park because it’ll be the same as every year. You’ll tell yourself you’re not going because tell it’s too expensive and you always wake up on the it’s too expensiv Monday morning with no shoes. Then some pals will convince you to tag along with them, and it’ll end up being the same beautiful, horrendous, filthy weekend it always is. Not that it makes much difference, but the performers this year are pretty starry: Sam Smith, Avicii, the Libertines, the Prodigy, Jamie T, Paloma Faith, Jessie J, Hozier, Fatboy Slim, Mark Ronson. Oh, and Kasabian. Check our June issue for more details. s too

St Vincent

Glanusk Estate, Brecon Beacons, Thu 20–Sun 23 Aug, weekend tickets around £165. This twinkly, folky little festival is a purists’ haven, with fresh mountain air and a 100% free-range, corn-fed lineup of quality stars: Super Furry Animals are joined by St Vincent, Hot Chip, the Staves, Owen Pallett, Emmy the Great, the Wave Pictures and Alasdair Roberts. Amid the ten different themed areas, there’s a ferris wheel, cinema tent, bonfire, kids’ zones, real ales and wood-fired hot tubs. Heaven. Foo Fighters

LATITUDE

T IN THE PARK T IN GREEN MAN

SPLURGE J a c k W h i t e

PRIMAVERA SOUND Barcelona, Spain, Thu 28–Sun 30 May, tickets €185–195. Basically, it’s an excuse for a holiday in Barcelona. The Black Keys, the Strokes, Antony and the Johnsons, Eels and Patti Smith provide sun- soaked tunes.

COACHELLA C Empire Polo Club, Indio, California, United E States, Fri 10–Sun 12 Apr and Fri 17–Sun S 19 Apr, tickets $375. It’s in California, so it’s 1 automatically cool. If you can’t make it, at least the lineup (Interpol, Jenny Lewis, Jack White, Hozier, Perfume Genius, the War on Drugs) reads like a list of all the bands you need to

BURNING MAN namedrop at parties in 2015. named

Black Rock Desert, Nevada, United States, Sun 30 Aug–Mon 7 Sep, tickets $390. Every self-respecting hipster in America descends on the desert for a week to create a whole city of ‘radical self-expression’, community art and ‘radical self- reliance’. It’s a giant spectacle of artistic madness and carnivale that requires input from every attendee and promises to leave no trace of itself afterwards. Put ‘radical self’ before everything you say at Burning Man to fit in. For example: instead of showering, try ‘radical self-cleansing’, and instead of eating breakfast, say ‘radical self-nourishing consumption’.

GLASTONBURY Worthy Farm, Somerset, Wed 24–Sun 28 Jun, tickets are whatever you’re willing to pay as they officially sold out long ago. The mother of UK festivals and birthplace of countless hippy awakenings. Foo Fighters, Kanye West and Lionel Richie will be the ones entertaining you in 2015, joined by the rest of the great and good in contemporary pop. At this stage you’ll have to sell your own mother to get a ticket, but if you’re a Glasto devotee, you’ll probably think that’s a fair price.

34 THE LIST 2 Apr–4 Jun 2015

FUJI ROCK Naeba Ski Resort, Niigata Prefecture, Japan, Fri 24–Sun 26 Jul, weekend tickets ¥39,800. Because what’s the point in flying all the way to Japan if you can’t listen to Muse? They will serenade you while you eat sushi and play vintage Nintendo. You can also have a dance to Foo Fighters, Belle and Sebastian, FKA Twigs, Motörhead and Rudimental.