Summer Festivals

I love the summer festival scene in London. So many great bands playing on our doorsteps, it’s awesome. So on Saturday Gabriella, Ange and I headed to the 02 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park. It’s a 5 day festival, and we caught Day 4 which was headlined by James Blunt, Beth Orton, The Eels and Adelaide’s own Ben Lee! And there was also this little known boy from Glasgow called Paolo Nutini. Now I’d heard of him from my Scottish ‘MEP Rep’ friend Emma, who sent me his album. (In August of last year Emma and I set up the MEP – a Music Exchange Program where, realising that there are so many great artists and bands from each others home countries that we’d probably never get the chance to hear, we send each other 2 CDs a month.) So I was dead keen to see him, and he was absolutely brilliant – one of the best acts all day.

Paolo Nutini

I sent Emma a text saying “guess what, currently standing 10m away from Paolo Nutini!” cause she’s a huge fan…..and guess where she was??? Up in Leeds for a Missy Higgins gig!! So funny, cause I’d sent her Missy’s album as part of the MEP. So there we both were, Aussie Amy watching Paolo from Glasgow, and Glaswegian Emma watching Missy from Australia! MEP rocks.

And another great thing I love about this country is the people you meet. Before we headed in to the festival on Saturday, Ange, Gabriella and I were having a picnic, and we started chatting to this couple who were next to us. Turns out they’re from Slovenia – such a coincidence, cause Ange and I had just booked summer holiday flights to Slovenia that morning!! Anna and Igor are lovely, and we ended up spending the whole day with them, and they’ve invited us to come and stay with them in August when we head over there. Awesome.

Anna, Igor, Gabriella, me and Ange


Some crazy festival creations!

Sunday morning I headed over to Camden Markets to catch up with Amy B and Deb, friends from Adelaide. Always think of The Waifs song ‘London Still’ when I go there…. “caught the tube over to Camden to wander around, bought some funky records with that old motown sound”. Great spot, and with it’s usual assortment of weird and wonderful characters, people watching is one very valid past time!

Saturday afternoon I met up with Lea, and we headed into Leicester Square to watch the England-Equador game. While there got a text from Gabriella, who was flyering at the O2 festival, saying she could get us in for free. Wicked! So Lea and I jumped on a tube and headed back over to Hyde Park, and spent the rest of the afternoon and the evening bopping to the likes of the Mystery Jets (fantastic), Goldfrappe and 80’s electronica group Depeche Mode. And we got 10 free snickers from the Snickers promotion dudes!! There’s another big festival next weekend “Hyde Park Calling”, with the The Who, Texas, Suzanne Vega, Roger Waters (no idea who he is but he’s a big name), Primal Scream etc. Fun!

Lea, Gabriella and I after Depeche Mode