more matey

I don’t care particularly for the headliners but tons of stuff on the undercard that I like including IDLES, Murder Capital, Holly Humberstone, CMAT, Yard Act and Personal Trainer. Overall, at this stage, the strongest lineup I have ever seen at Victorious (attended last 3 years). Feels like a definite shift to a Latitude level size.

LCD/IDLES/Young Fathers day? They are doing this on the 26th June in Ireland. All 3 have nothing in their schedules late August.

Touring US in April. Can deffo see them finishing up the album cycle with summer festivals

Presumably they’ll try for Young Fathers.

Does anyone know the capacity limit for the festival? I’m sure I had read somewhere it was 60,000 however Marcus Mumford on stage clearly stated 80,000 were in attendance. I do think the festival’s ambitions are ever increasing and that Mumford & Sons were their first legit A list booking (they headlined Mad Cool and others this summer for example) and thus we will see more bookings at that level moving forward. I know Sam Fender was a big ticket mover last year but when they originally booked him in Dec 2021 I’m not sure he was yet the A list act he became by the time he played.

I’ve been to the last 3 Sunday’s at Victorious. Agreed the alterations improved things on last year. A noticeable reduction this year on smashed 18 year olds - prob the difference between booking Fender and Mumford. It is a casual crowd but generally well behaved/ respectful. I went to APE on Friday and that crowd had just as many chatty/casual/all about me types if not more so. I was surprised by how patient the crowd was for Ben Howard for example given how difficult his music can be.

Sound issues aside, I think The Strokes suffered from a few variables beyond their control. Of the 50k people who attended, roughly 15k parked themselves at the East Stage for a good spot for The Strokes. They had a good view/sound of the band and only bought their ticket for them and prob went away happy with the performance. The problem is the other 35k were spoilt by the riches on offer on other stages. I had front row for The Walkmen, Amyl and the Sniffers and Black Midi. All were at least good (Amyl superb). The scheduling and 15k parked at East Stage meant all the crowds were well spread up to this point and so getting near the front easy. Then on masse we all turn up for The Strokes to find ourselves half a mile away. The relative intimacy and high bar from bands earlier meant that The Strokes just felt detached. Factor tiredness kicking in and the crowd got bored and restless.

Crowd yesterday was very mixed, meaning depending on who you saw the crowd vibe was vastly different. For The Walkmen it was very much 40’s, generally chilled. For Black Midi the average age was 20, everyone smashed and thus the pit was feral.

Get Amyl and the Sniffers on your watchlist if you are going tomorrow (if they aren’t already). Absolutely superb at APE.

Well it was going so well until The Strokes….odd day in that I managed to get front row on the barrier for The Walkmen, Amyl and the Sniffers and Black Midi and thoroughly enjoyed them all. In particular Amyl and the Sniffers were superb. Amy is an absolute superstar. The crowd was wild for them and Black Midi. The Strokes was just flat from the get go. Sound was of course poor to the right of the stage. But that wasn’t only it. There was just a lack of connection. People around me were bored. I kept trying to move spots to find the spark but never did.

Although not an exact science, the number of people who have scheduled to see acts through the app is an indicator of sales. The Dermot Kennedy day looks to be the worst by some margin. The Jungle day has double the number of schedules. Based on this The Strokes day is going to be rammed I suspect (not surprising given it is a near Primaevra level line up).

Thanks for that. The wording on the site is very vague about whether a space is ‘guaranteed’….fingers crossed. I have my doubts!

For local people/regulars; given the removal of on-site parking and the strikes, how likely is it that car parks in and around the main central train station will be full on Sunday morning (only coming for the one day)? Have previously used St John’s Cathedral parking but that is already full which has set alarm bells ringing…. I’d thought that ticket sales being down on last years Sam Fender inspired increase might mitigate the above? Is there any other parking available near the main station that can be pre booked in advance to guarantee a space?

When do we find out which acts are on which stage? Not timings but just who is playing where.

For those going, I would highly recommend Blondshell. I saw her at The Great Escape last Thurs and she was the undoubted highlight of the festival for me.