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The Mid-Week Beat: This Summer’s UK Music Festivals

Music >

NorthwalesWith the weather finally picking up in the UK and with positive energy of Murray Mania rippling across the country, we can now think positively about what else the summer has to bring! One of the regular fixtures of summer is the music festival, so this week the Mid-Week Beat is offering a peek at three of the festivals coming up.

With one in Scotland, one in England and one in Wales hopefully you’ll find one close by. Each festival brings different sounds to their appreciative audiences. These are well organised festivals that are sure to be around for some time to come. In fact, one has already clocked up an impressive 40 years!

Check out the listings and dates, book a B&B or buy a tent and get ready for a UK summer of fine music.

Friday, 12 July to Sunday, July 14th I LeeFest – Highams Hill Farm – Surre, England  At Brown Paper Tickets we love to work with community projects that have a DIY mentality. This is why it is such a pleasure to be selling tickets for LeeFest this year. This is a festival that started from humble beginnings with the right mindset, principles and ethics. It has now become a major player in the annual festival calendar winning “Best Independent Festival” in 2012 at the Association of Independent Music awards. LeeFest has certainly come a long way from starting in founder Lee Denny’s back garden with 150 people, whilst his parents were on holiday. This small community has grown over the years and now the festival will run over 3 days in 2013 with the community swelling beyond 3,000 attendees.

Despite the rise in numbers the organizers are keen to keep the same atmosphere. As the numbers have grown so have the demographic. The younger crowd has grown to be a real cross section of the population, throwing their youthful energy into the mix and making this such a unique event. Not wanting to sell out to big sponsors and investors Leefest raised over £50,000 crowd funding through Kickstarter this year so that they can continue to grow and remain sponsor free. Some of the acts appearing this year include Noisettes  Delphic, King Charles and The Other Tribe to name but a few. The full line up can be found here. You can also follow all their news on Twitter at @LeeFest

Here are Noisettes with “Don’t Upset the Rhythm”:

Thursday, 22 August to Sunday, August 25 I Doune the Rabbit Hole – Cardoss Estate – Stirlingshire, Scotland   We’ve been working with Doune since the beginning so it’s great to see them back for their 4th year.

The festival takes up a new residence this year at the beautiful Cardross Estate at the Lake of Menteith near Stirling in Scotland. With a great mix of acts including fantastic festival acts like Bombskare & The John Langan Band, there’s weird and wonderful acts like  Zun Zun Egui & Stealing Sheep. There is also some great Scottish youngsters like Panda Su, Washington Irving, Randolph’s Leap and Paws. There’s a lot of amazing psychedelia from Hidden Masters, Haight Ashbury, and Robyn Hitchcock, some heavier stuff from The Cosmic Dead, No Island and Bo Ningen and we’ve got the likes of Rebecca Vasmant and Hector Bizerk to lead you through to the early hours in their dance tent. If that doesn’t suit you they’ve also got some experimental jazz in the form of the Z’s and others.

This year promises to be the biggest and best Doune the Rabbit Hole to date! Check out the full line up here and grab your tickets now. Get all the updates by following them at @dounetherabbit

Gallon Drunk play on Friday 23rd and here they are with “You Made Me”.

Friday, 20 September to Saturday I North Wales International Music Festival – St. Asaph Cathedral – St. Asaph, Wales  Founded by William Mathias, and now in its 41st year, the North Wales International Music Festival is a classical music festival featuring world-class performers in the intimate setting of St Asaph Cathedral.

This is the third year we’ve worked with NWIMF and we are very happy to have them back. The principal aims of the festival are to foster appreciation, understanding and enjoyment of classical music amongst as wide a cross-section of the communities of North Wales as possible. They strive to provide people from all backgrounds with the opportunity to experience live performances of classical music given by performers of the highest quality, whilst further promoting the development of Welsh culture within the genre. This year’s Festival features performances from acclaimed pianist Peter Donohoe, The ‘Queen of Harps’ Catrin Finch and BBC National Orchestra of Wales amongst others.You can see their full programme here and you can keep up with them at @NWIMF
Peter Donohoe performs on Tuesday 24 of September and you can book your ticket here. This is Peter performing Debussy’s “L’Isle Joyeuse.”

That’s it for this week’s Mid-Week Beat, if you have a festival you’re looking forward to, add it to the comments section.