Tom Dunne: Four destination music festivals to book now for a dreamy summer holiday
The Burning Man seen during the festival of the same name in Nevada. Picture: Chase Stevens/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP
A surefire way, I am reliably informed, to lift the January blues is to book your summer holiday immediately. It gives you something to do now (search destinations), something to tell your family (“look where we’re going”) and something to look forward to. And, no small thing, it gives you time to save.
I learned all this some years back listening to Chris Moyles’ Breakfast show, then on BBC Radio 1. It was his January thing. Listeners flooded him with tales of their “best holiday ever” and descriptions of plans for the year ahead. Christmas trees were not yet binned, but summer was in the air.
I, sadly, was never that organised, or confident. Summer seemed so, so faraway. So, like most people, I “waited to see” before panicking in mid-May and scrambling for what we could get, not that it ever worked out so bad. But I knew I was missing something!
This is particularly true if you are a music fan. Festivals are becoming bigger business the world over.
Curation is being honed to a fine art these days and a well-curated festival set in an idyllic location, is the stuff dream holidays are made of.
So, if you have some time, a little money, an ear for a good tune and a desire to travel a little, may I suggest...
This is its inaugural year, and it takes place from May 25 to May 27. The line-up is stellar with The Pretenders, Primal Scream, Ocean Colour Scene, Spiritualized and, my own favourites, Public Service Broadcasting and Edwyn Collins. But the real star is the location.
The festival will take place in the grounds of Lews Castle in Stornaway on the Isles of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. It is as far north as you can go and still be in the UK and more Norse than Scottish.
This has not been announced — and may not be — but on the off chance that it is, have credit cards ready and time set aside. It was last held in 2019 and was a huge success so it has since only been interrupted by the pandemic, which is now ending.
Then it was a four-day cruise in the Mediterranean, a round trip sailing from Barcelona via Sardinia. Entertainment on the cruise was provided by Belle and Sebastian, Mogwai, Yo La Tengo, Teenage Fanclub, Camera Obscura and, hats off to the curation, Japanese Breakfast and Alvvays.
There were others, but the key was informality. The bands dined with you, performed impromptu acoustic sessions and swapped members on stage. It may not happen again, but if it does...
The star of this festival is not the acts — Pet Shop Boys, Kendrick, Blur, Halsey, Rosalia and Depeche Mode — but its location. It is now being hosted in Madrid and Porto but you need to see it in its original location: Barcelona.
Barcelona is a place to see at any time for the culture, architecture and cuisine, but when it hosts this vibrant, wonderful festival it is at its mouth-watering best. It takes place from June 1 to 4 at the Parc Del Forum, and the following weekend in Madrid and Porto.
From its Wicker Man roots, burning a wooden effigy on Summer Solstice, this has grown to be a destination festival for free spirits of all types. It certainly carries a lot of the original Woodstock spirit, held in a “temporary city” 100 miles northeast of Reno.
But don’t call it a festival. There is no lineup or schedule and this year it will be celebrating the animal world and our place in it. Excellent.
All of these festivals could provide you with the musical holiday of a lifetime. But that said there is also a lot to be said for going nowhere this year, particularly in June. Yep, in June it might be better just to keep what money you have for tickets alone.
Because, this June, there will be concerts in Ireland by Soft Cell, Pulp, Harry Styles, Paolo Nutini, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Arctic Monkeys, Chemical Brothers, Blur, Peter Gabriel, War on Drugs, The Prodigy, Sting, Blondie and Kraftwerk.
I can’t help but suspect that that’s a better list of bands than has played here in ALL OF THE SEVENTIES! I’ll be proven wrong here, but not by much. Start saving!
