Festival of the Week: Field Day

Posted on Jul 29th 2009 9:13AM by Stephen Dowling
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Website: http://www.fielddayfestivals.com/
Where: Victoria Park, Hackney, London
When: August 1st
Capacity: 5,000. No Glasto-style logjams likely.
Ticket price: £29.50.
How to get there: Victoria Park, in east London, is well served by buses - Routes 8, 309, 339, 388, D3, D6, S2 all stop near the park. Mile End (District and Central lines), Bow Road (District Line), Stratford (Jubilee Line), Bow Church (DLR) and Bethnal Green (Central line) are the closest Tube stops, while a wealth of nearby train stops include Hackney Wick, Cambridge Heath and Bethnal Green.

Who's playing: Headliners this year are Scottish post-rockers Mogwai, playing their only English festival of 2009, as well as The Arcade Fire-like Fanfarlo, rapper Santigold, gothic rockers The Horrors, hotly-tipped Aussies The Temper Trap and Little Boots.

Who's played before: An indie-centric line-up last year included Foals, Of Montreal, Emma Pollock, White Lies and Laura Marling. In 2007, it starred Bat For Lashes, Battles, Caribou, Justice and Florence and the Machine. Not much, perhaps, for the average Van Halen fan.

What's it like: The Field Day line-up comes from the less commercial end of indie – no mainstream-hugging headliners like Snow Patrol or Coldplay here. The festival also takes its inspiration from school sports days and village fetes -- its less about mosh pits, and more about sack races and tombola. It's one of the few festivals you're likely to go to where you'll be able to take in the sounds of Four Tet whilst lounging against a haybale. The festival's line-up is picked by London promoters Eat Your Own Ears, who've recently been behind gigs by Andrew Bird and Bill Callahan (Smog).

What sets it apart: The village mentality in the midst of an urban music festival -- for instance, the food is all from sourced markets across London, rather than the usual burger vans and hog roasts found handing out stodgy stomach-fillers at other festivals.

When festival fever sets it: There's a Make Do and Mend tent for those wanting to get in touch with their inner Blitz Spirit, while ping pong tables and tugs of war will also divert you from whatever left-field indie tunes are floating over the park. There's even a coconut shy and a crockery-smashing competition. Make note, too, of the Scrabble Sunday – where indie fans are challenged to pit their spelling brains against all-comers. And yes, we know the festival's on a Saturday...