I always said that There Goes The Fear wouldn’t be another festival news site, sticking with gigs and tours. However, one festival has caught my eye for the second year running… the Hydro Connect Festival.

In rural Scotland, it has a simply amazing lineup over the last weekend in August, with all the bands below playing… which is pretty much a who’s who of my favourite bands. Now, if they just added Delays I’d be happy!!

Just look at this lineup…

Franz Ferdinand
Kasabian
Bloc Party
Sigur Ros
Manic Street Preachers,
Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band,
Elbow,
Gossip,
Spiritualized,
Mercury Rev,
The Coral (acoustic),
Paolo Nutini,
Asobi Seksu,
Gomez,
The Young Knives,
Passenger

How immense is that? Precisly. Looks like one of the best festivals this year, quite honestly.

If I were you, come payday on Friday I’d get a weekend ticket, which are priced £120 and weekend tickets with camping are £140. To buy, log onto their website or call Ticketmaster on 08444 999 990

Those nice folks over at Somerset house have announced details of their Summer Series 2008 events. This summer sees the likes of Fratellis, We Are Scientists and Justice all grace the old courtyard over the course of 10 days in July.

Tickets are available here on presale from Ticketmaster, and go on sale on Wednesday (14th May) at 10am.

Thursday 10th July – The Fratellis
Friday 11th July – Justice
Saturday 12th July – Unkle
Sunday 13th July – The Blue Nile
Monday 14th July – Lupe Fiasco
Tuesday 15th July – We Are Scientists
Wednesday 16th July – The Zutons
Thursday 17th July – The Feeling
Friday 18th July – Duffy
Saturday 19th July – Adele

It seems that Scandanavians currently have one of the best music scenes around at the moment, managing to have some of the most diverse, and interesting, acts around at the moment. Denmark’s Alphabeat are set to take over the airwaves in 2008 with their unique brand of camp, over-the-top pop which makes the Scissor Sisters look tame.

Perfectly danceable, lyrically strong, and quintessentially Danish in sound, they have some of the best tunes since the Scissor Sisters with a much more European feel, and a hint of flashbacks from the 90’s too. Their self-titled debut came out last summer in Denmark, and is out this May in the UK, but is one of the most varied collections of music I’ve heard in a while – a really great album.

Fans include the Sun, the NME, and a fair few blogs and online news sites, and they have the same management as Mika – and we all know how big Mika has become, love it or hate it.

They’re currently on tour with Palladium around the UK, and I’ll be going to see them on Monday night in Oxford – expect a full review on Tuesday.

“We’re proud to be able to play in one of Tony Blair’s legacies to the UK” David Kay of Tiny Dancers said of their chance to be one of the first bands to play the indigo2 at the former Millenium Dome.

One of the most state of the art venues in the UK Indigo2 is the smaller of two venues at the new O2 complex which comprises shops, bars and cinema as well as the 20,000 arena and the 2,500 capacity indigo2. A contender to the likes of Koko and Shepherds Bush, its small enough for it to be used as “club gigs” for big bands, and large enough for small bands to aim for.

Up in the balcony the venue looked distinctly like a cinema, with plush seats (complete with stewards to tell you to get them off the seat in front) and speakers throughout. However, it lacks the quirks of some older venues: Whilst the sound is simply superb, the place lacks some of the atmosphere that darker, dingier places like the Astoria have and makes them so loved.

For the first nights entertainment, AOL took it over for their “sessions”, which last night saw Tiny Dancers, The Thrills, Magic Numbers and Crowded House take to the stage. Tiny Dancers were first up, playing to a half empty venue, however soon got into the spirit of things, playing five songs. Highlight was “Hannah, We Know” which saw dancing lego people on the giant screens behind the stage.

The Thrills were next up, debuting new material from their forthcoming album “Teenagers” alongside old favourites “Santa Cruz”, “Whatever Happened to Corey Haim?” and “One Horse Town”. Conor Deasy went into showman mode pretty quickly, getting everyone clapping along. Their new material is a natural progression from previous two albums, summery and Irish-American tinged.

In between sets AOL showed some of their previous sessions, with Paul Weller, Paolo Nutini and Ghosts all making appearances. In between The Thrills and Magic Numbers the crowd were treated to a backstage set from Siobhán Donaghy, which showed off her beautiful voice perfectly. However, being shown on video screens just made the entire audience feel detached from the experience.

Magic Numbers provided more summery tunes, with Michelle and Romeo seemingly a bit more used to the stage compared to when this Londonista saw them back in early 2005. Songs like “Forever Lost” and “Love Me Like You” sounded not at all faded, and performed with as much gusto as if they were written yesterday.

Finally, the guys most of the crowd had been waiting for, Crowded House. Hurtling through their set at a decent speed, they were chatty and genial to the crowd, with the Ozzies commenting that “It feels like I’m playing the Bowling Club Social” in regards to the number of summer hats floating around the crowd that were given out free by AOL. On their slower tracks, Neil Finn was clearly peeved with the amount of talking the balcony was doing, commenting “Listen you bastards! You can talk tomorrow!” which was a very fair point.

Four sets in four hours is a decent speed for any venue, however it’s just a shame it hasn’t got any of the soul some of London’s better venues have. The bands meanwhile overcame any issues they may have had with the venue by putting in a thoroughly entertaining show for all.

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Last night I finished reading one of this year’s summer bestsellers, “This book will save your life”. It’s one of Richard and Judy’s reads for the summer, and is definitely a book to polarise opinions.

It follows reclusive Richard Novak through a break-down of sorts and then watches as he re-discovers the dysfunctional Los Angeles area, making friends with Anhil, the local donut shop owner and getting to grips with getting his life back on track. During this time Richard goes through a series of pretty unbelievable events one after another, making for an interesting read.

There were quite a few parallels to the film “Garden State” here for me, as Homes manages to take Richard on a voyage of discovery about himself and the people around him that both captivates and intrigues.

However, it does have its slower moments when I was tempted to put it down and not continue. Little things like the switches from first to third person (often mid paragraph) and the lack of chapters made it difficult to get on with, however it was quite a rewarding read come the end of it, even if most of it was pretty unbelievable and a bit slow to develop.

As I mentioned yesterday, the rest of the Somerset house gigs have been announced, with an impressive lineup. I’d quite like to see most of these bands… but obviously I probably won’t get a chance.

Thursday 12 July Mogwai in surround sound
Friday 13 July Kasabian
Saturday 14 July Bert Jansch featuring Beth Orton and Bernard Butler
Sunday 15 July Guillemots
Monday 16 July Lily Allen
Tuesday 17 July Mika
Wednesday 18 July Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Thursday 19 July The Roots
Friday 20 July Amy Winehouse
Saturday 21 July Hot Chip

Presale is now available here

Tomorrow the Summer Series gigs at Somerset house in London are announced, and this year one of the bands playing is Mika, supported by Patrick Wolf, which looks like its going to be one big cheesy camp-fest for everyone to enjoy. Both bands have sold out 2,000 capacity venues quickly, so expect tickets for this Somerset House gig to go quickly. On sale on Thursday, but presale is available at the link below from tomorrow morning at 10am.

Tuesday 17th July 2007 – 8pm – Somerset House, London.

Tickets are on sale now from here.