Festivals

It might have been “Bye Bye Balado” at T in the Park this year, but for me it was more of a “Hello, Goodbye!”  My first T was a fantastic weekend, with some great music and good times spent with friends and although I’ve only been the once, I’ll remember my weekend at Balado fondly. On the whole, T in the Park was probably the best festival I’ve been to.  I may be looking at the weekend through rose-tinted sunglasses, with the weather having been — Read more →

The Tartan Heart Festival, more commonly known as Belladrum after its home estate, is now the Highlands’ premier music festival after this year’s collapse of RockNess.  I’m delighted that an event held so close to home, and one that has come from such humble beginnings, holds such an honour.  It’s highly regarded as a festival, with everyone coming away from it with only positives every year.  It’s normally one of my favourite weekends of the year, too.  However, with the weight of expectation this year’s — Read more →

After months of speculation and doubt, tonight the organisers of RockNess finally announced that there would be no event held in 2014.  Although the response to the news has been mixed, it surely comes as a major blow to music in the Highlands and in the North of Scotland in general. Although the official reasons for the sabbatical year is “due to events alongside the World Cup and the Commonwealth Games” it would be naïve to assume this is the sole factor at play.  RockNess’ — Read more →

Over the last few years I’ve become a big fan of music festivals.  Belladrum, a local and folksy festival, has become a staple of my summers and the Rockness I attended 2 years ago was easily one of the best weekends of a great year. With Rockness increasingly likely to be canned for this year, and Belladrum likely to bring in only mediocre acts, I decided to take a punt and go for the big one in 2014: T in the Park. It is easily — Read more →