Primavera 2010.

Festivals, Schmestivals! My idea to make going to festivals fun again is simple. Have it somewhere where it is unlikely to rain, remove all the tired pop bands that fill up so much of the dead time while you wait for the one headliner you may wish to see, fill the days with a mix of up and coming indie and established acts, keep it away from the T in the Park clientelle. My last thought was to make it cheaper than your average UK festibore.

So imagine my surprise when I noted that some enterprising Catalans had stolen my very idea and organised a festival of modern beat combos (and the Pet Shop Boys). I was even more astounded to discover they had stolen my very idea ten years before my slow brain had thought it up.

Using Wikipedia to arrange a modern festival is probably not recommended and it would be considered a serious impediment if your p.c froze whilst you were looking into booking the afore mentioned hit parade merchants on the page dedicated to artists beginning with a p. How fortunate then for the crafty catalans that this meant we got Pixies, Pavement and Pet Shop Boys booked as headliners. Thus avoiding any repeat of the disasterous Reading Fest of '82 when a dyslexic entrepreneur arranged for Bucks Fixx to follow Free.

Off we went then to Barcelona in May. The festival site is on the edge of the city and there is no campng but a 15 euro taxi trip gets you back into the centre after the bands. The bands hit the stage at around 1800 hours with the headliners on at 0100 and then the party continues until 3am or so.

Bands we went planning to see were Bis, The Fall, , Wilco my heroes who I have never caught before. Pavement, Pixies, The Drums, Yeasayer, Roddy Frame and The XX. Also caught The Charlatans, Health, Shellac, Wild Beasts, Japandroids, Marc Almond, Dum Dum Girls amongst others.

Pixies were on top form and were even better than when we saw them at the SECC the previous year. They played Winterlong which kept me happy.

We had a great time, there was plenty of room, lots of beer, always someone interesting to watch and you could head back to a proper bed after the gig.

The first band names for 2011 have been released as the tickets go on sale. They include Belle and Sebastian, The National, Fleet Foxes, Suicide, and Pulp who I have all seen before as well as Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips, and Ariel Pink Grafitti Thingy.

That's just the start and it is good enough to start looking into flights and saving to but those early bird tickets.

Nice to have someting to look forward to.