Introduction:
V Festival is now in its 16th year and was the first UK festival to operate over two days and swap line-ups overnight. Artists who have performed include The Killers, Kylie, Foo Fighters, Blur, Oasis, Kings of Leon and Radiohead.
2011 saw another great range of acts, most notably for me Pendulum, Eminem, Chromeo, Gomez and (because a buddy plays bass) Example.
The site:
V is on a huge site in Essex, easy to access from London, tonnes of parking and camp sites a quick walk from the entrance. Food stalls were great, was really good to see quality healthy options in addition to the standard burger vans. Beer tokens and Carling tents are ubiquitous at any festival, and suck, but this was more than made up for by the AWESOME Strongbow bar/tent – possibly the best party at the entire festival, great DJ’s and great (sexy) staff.
Atmosphere:
The festival had a very energetic vibe with huge pumped up crowds at all of the big stages. Nice people, great weather (apart from Saturday afternoon) and a really fun weekend.
Music:
Pendulum, as always, were epic. Other than that the sheer variety of top flights acts ensured you were never short of something to see, although as ever this meant that the best ones invariably overlapped.
Best bits:
– Range of acts from mainstream to underground… More specifically Pendulum on the 4music stage who really got the crowd going and performed perfectly, and Gomez who had a very personal and moving show at the Undercover tent.
– Strongbow tent was always rocking with very sexy staff, great atmosphere and awesome djs.
– Variety of food, always good if one day you want a bit of dirty grease and the next you need a salad!
– The people
– Atmosphere
Worst bits:
– Standard festival portaloos and not enough of them for the amount of people
– Beer tokens are a stupid idea and we are now left with a few in our pockets that are no longer valid, seems like a good way to steal peoples money
– Festival not open at all on Friday, and Saturday and Sunday everything is shut off at 11pm!
– Can at times feel less like a festival and more like lots of little concerts
– So many good acts playing at the same time that it forces you to make a decision between one or the other. This also meant if one was more mainstream than the other then sadly they wouldn’t get a big audience.
Final thoughts:
Great festival thoroughly worth attending especially as they can afford to get huge internationally famous artists, and then amongst these are many other amazing musicians.
Definitely looking forward to what V have to offer next year and hopefully they are able to change certain things such as the time the site closes. One thing that Iiinside were upset about was that there were no dance tents or late night acts, people were just forced simultaneously to exit the site and return to camp.
Many thanks to the guys over at CAKE for trying their best to accommodate press.
