If you read our festival of the year type roundup in Issue
2.2, you will have seen that we reckoned Beacons was set to clear up in 2011.
The combo of cult AND fun artists, local stuff and supreme attention to detail
seemed to have it in the bag. But disaster struck and the event was cancelled
due to some rather terrible flooding. How to respond? Well, it would seem the
organisers have taken everything they had lined up for last year and trebled
it. Like some alternate universe where last year’s went supremely well, sold
out and they decided to totally go to town on it. To do that off the back of a
disaster like last year is brave, courageous and – for us punters – an absolute
godsend. 2012 looks amazing.
Situated up in beautiful North Yorkshire, near Skipton (and
thankfully now on higher ground) Beacons festival aims to take the kind of
Leeds based cool that seems alien / intriguing to small city dwellers such as
myself and transport it into the countryside. This means interesting asides
such Vintage Clothes Stalls, make-your-own-zine events, talks & debates,
guerrilla theatre and spoken word sessions providing an alternative to simply
putting a stage in a field. There are more DJs than some festivals dare have
main artists and the general impression is that we can expect a busy, vibrant,
inclusive site, which I am well into these days.
The lineup itself looks pretty special. There are some big
names who we all know and probably love: Roots Manuva, Wild Beasts, Ghost Poet,
Patrick Wolf, Willy Mason. Errors are a big call for me. I’ve not had chance to
catch them since they released their stupendously well received new album.
Cloud Nothings too are a huge buzz band I’ve not caught yet. The Wave Pictures
are incredibly low on the running order too – it’s testament to a varied lineup
that has clearly been created by dedicated and passionate music lovers.
Course, they can’t help but have a dig at Wakefield :
the bio for Imp is jokingly unable to think of any more but two other Wakefield bands. Cheers
guys!
Slack content writing aside, it looks like a winner to us.
As an obvious aficionado of the City based festival this year, it takes more to
impress me with an outdoor one. Beacons seems to have the quality lower down
the bill, akin to Live At Leeds, where you feel you could check out a band
you’ve never heard and they’ll be great. The top end suggest a mix up upbeat
rural partying and sunset accompanied whimsy, which sounds lovely. At £85 for a
weekend ticket, it’s a serious undertaking, but it’s clearly still value for
money. It’s a great overall package.
That ‘festival of the year’ poll I mentioned was instead won
by Latitude. I mourned giving it to such a big name, but the fact was it did so
much right, so much for other festivals to learn from. Beacons feels like it
could be a more homely, more affordable, slightly more secret Latitude. But
with the buzz around this year’s event, hopefully it’ll only be the latter that
doesn’t remain so.
Dean Freeman
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