Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers blog

The summer music festival season is almost upon us and 2007 looks set to be one of the loudest and proudest yet. With soaring temperatures and UK sets from the likes of The Who (Glastonbury, Somerset June 25th – 27th), The Rolling Stones (Isle of Wight, June 8th – 10th) and the much talked about reformation of The Smashing Pumpkins (Reading and Leeds respectively, Friday 24th to Sunday 26th August), the UK looks set to be rocking, the land over.

2007 also sees the rise of the smaller festivals and some have grown in considerable notoriety since their humble beginnings. Kicking things off for the ‘indie’ contingent at the start of the festival run is The Camden Crawl (North London, 19th and 20th April) which involves trekking through North London’s infamous smaller venues and discovering a whole host of small, quirky and often ‘set for big things’ acts in the process.

Following suit, there are many more of these smaller events including Oxfordshire’s barn dance that is the Truck festival (Oxfordshire, 21st-22nd July) and one of the summers (not so small anymore) finales Bestival held on the Isle of Wight (Newport, 7th-9th September).

However it is the major festivals such as V Festival (Chelmsford and Staffordshire respectively, 18th and 19th August), The Carling Weekend and Glastonbury that still hold the musical monopoly, and if its world beating bands that you want to see then this is where you have to be.

You just have to look at the rumoured line up for the Godfather of festivals, Glastonbury, to know this to be true. Back from its year long sabbatical in 2006 to let the otherwise working farms fields recover, the blogosphere rumour mill has been working overtime on this festival and it seems that the worlds greatest in rock and roll could be heading down to Somerset this June including The Killers, Kasabian, The Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire and amongst many others the mod kings, The Who. As Les asks on Yahoo! Answers, just who will take the organiser Michael Eavis’ crown of ‘biggest band in the world’ for the headlining Saturday night slot? Like many festival goers out there Chunk is currently “debating whether or not [she] should go to Glastonbury” due to the yearly torrential downpour and mud slides that the Glastonbury revellers are faced with.

As rock and roll continues to gain in popularity be sure to not only catch your favourite bands but to also look out for the growing base of celebrities that now don their (albeit expensive and certainly designer) festival gear and gather at the various music events. One celeb favourite has to be the V Festival where you are sure to see a gaggle of all classes from movie stars to reality TV participants all hoping to raise their profile by being seen watching this years ‘cool’ bands.

Whatever your musical preference be it ‘indie rock’, metal or dance there is a festival out there for you in the UK this summer. Just a brief look through the line ups at the many nationwide events that are taking place is almost enough to make you want to instantly crack open and warm larger and bask in the musical glory that awaits you. So follow dave69sm’s new found advice from the Answers community after he asked for any “hints and tips” that previous attendees may be able to give on festival essentials. It seemed that the general consensus was to go and grab that flea infested tent, chuck in the baked beans and your other festival essentials and head down to the event of your fancy. Oh and remember one thing… don’t forget your wellies!

– Yahoo! UK & Ireland team