Sheep Musical Festival // Presteigne, Mid Wales // 20-22 July
When push comes to shove, you can keep your flashy, big-budget, big-name million-capacity corporate-sponsored festivals. Small, intimate, friendly festivals that have been passed down from parents to children, and then from the children to their children, and the children to their cousins, friends and random acquaintances are the way to go.
Sheep Music is the way to go.
This most fantastically local of festivals will be sprouting up in a field next to Presteigne, Mid Wales, between the 20th and the 22nd of July, and if you can muster the necessary magic carpet power to find your way to Presteigne (hint: it's by Knighton), you'd simply be a fool not to attend. Bright, silly, home-made and packed to the gills with off-the-beaten-track-type treats, top-quality musical offerings and some of the most specialist weirdos the UK has to offer, Sheep Music is 100 per cent guaranteed to be that festival. The one you take a chance on, and are supremely glad you did. The one where you come away with so many new friends you'll need an entirely new Facebook account to deal with them all. The one where you'll learn a whole new vocabulary, and spend more time than may be physically healthy literally (yes, literally) pissing yourself laughing.
Yeah, it's a good one.
Confirmed acts for Sheep Music 2012, spread over six beautiful stages, include KeyMono, Lung, East Park Reggae Collective, Lazy Habits, Middleman, Million Way, Saravah Soul, Nick Mulvey Trio, Yes Sir Boss!, London Afrobeat Collective, Alejandro Toledo and the Magic Tombolinos, 4Square, Sound Assembly, Samsara, Rusty Shackle, Aydio, Shanti Bass, The Village Hall DJs, DJ Boshdog, Gaz Clart, The Build Up, DJ Spandangle and Up Your Noize. And on top of that you can expect random theatre and poetry performances, circus shows, a dedicated kids' area, yoga and tai chi, the odd ceilidh, the awe-inspiring, world-renowned freestyle football skills of Ash Randall and very possibly a load of people shouting 'ALAN' (or some combination of the words "gurt", "Bertha" and "flange") in the middle of the night.
Head to www.sheepmusicfestival.com for more details.
Don't sleep - SHEEP.
