Features

Dot-to-Dot Festival: Preview

Paul Cook 28/04/2010

God is in the TV's Dot-To-Dot Festival Preview...

Now in its 6th year, the Dot-to-Dot Festival is an alternative city-festival, going from strength to strength offering yet another year of fantastic music at a credit-crunch friendly price. Comparable to the Camden Crawl the fantastic lineup of new and established acts is spread across several venues. In the same vein as the Reading/Leeds weekend the Dot-to-Dot festival takes place on consecutive days shared across three cities; Bristol, Nottingham and Manchester. Taking place over the last weekend of May (29th-31st) for a recession-busting ticket price of just £30, Dot-to-Dot is most likely to be one of the year's earliest festival highlights.

In previous years the festival has brought us the best priced ticket to catch bands as well-established as The Cribs and Foals and as promising and refreshing new talent as These New Puritans, Late of the Pier, Laura Marling and Fanfarlo. This year Dot-to-Dot's current lineup is equally impressive featuring everyone from Leeds lyricists Wild Beasts and the band of 2010, Beach House.

GIITTV's Paul Cook is on hand to take you through the lineup which promises to kick the festival circuit off with a bang…


Headliners


Mystery Jets
Ahead of the release of their third studio album Serotonin in July, Twickenham's Mystery Jets will headline each of the three cities of the festival with a mixture of new material and Twenty-One tracks.

Ellie Goulding
The starry-eyed pop starlet has been the talk of the town in pop circles in 2010. She will play the Bristol and Nottingham legs of this year's Dot-to-Dot Festival hot off the back of her debut album Lights.

Wild Beasts



Gracing the stages of all three cities, the country's finest pop-operatic group Wild Beasts begin their summer festival marathon with Dot-to-Dot. Performing fantastic Limbo, Panto material alongside newer Two Dancers tracks, the band's set could easily be the highlight of the festival as their vocal expertise and instrumental grandeur can captivate any audience.


More…


Zane Lowe
On hand to provide his usual eclectic mix of everything from indie-rock to dance to hip hop and beyond, Zane Lowe will be performing a DJ set at Bristol, Nottingham and Manchester for the festival. Having played bucket loads of festivals and most of the tour's venues as part of student union events, the Radio 1 DJ is a seasoned professional at providing the right mix of music at the right time.

Los Campesinos!
Cardiff's indie-popsters Los Campesinos! will be appearing at all three cities across the Dot-to-Dot weekend bringing their joyously upbeat sounds and happy-go-lucky charm with them.

Beach House



Undoubtedly the buzz-band of 2010, Beach House are to appear on the Nottingham and Manchester legs of the Dot-to-Dot Tour to perform material from their stunning debut album Teen Dreams. The American duo will be one of the bands-to-see at this year's festival and crowds will relish the opportunity to see them on a modestly-sized stage before they hit inevitable mainstream success later in the year.

Field Music
Sunderland's lesser known indie-rock band Field Music are to play the Bristol and Manchester days of the festival. The band have featured several varied member-amalgamations including contributions from members of The Futureheads' and Maximo Park.

Blood Red Shoes
An indie-rock duo with half the typical members and double the energy of most bands on the Dot-to-Dot lineup, Blood Red Shoes is the official band name of Laura-Mary Carter and Steven Ansell and having seen the band in several support slots over the years it's hard to believe they're not higher on the bill. A must-see at the festival.

Liars
Appearing across all three cities on this year's Dot-to-Dot festival the New Yorkers Liars will be on hand to deliver their characteristic variation of sounds, styles and tempos to keep the crowd guessing.

Lonelady
After her debut album Nerve Up was released earlier this year, Julie Campbell, better known as Warp Records' latest signing Lonelady, has garnered plenty of critical attention. Dot-to-Dot is the place to see what all the fuss is about.

And the rest…

As with any festival, it's impossible to talk about every band on the bill. So here's the rest of the music that you can catch at this year's Dot-to-Dot festival:

Egyptian Hip Hop
Twisted Wheel
Washed Out
The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster
Lights
Johnny Foreigner
Dan Sartain
Fun
Jakwob
Chapel Club
Daisy Dares You
Rox Doorly
Deda Confederate
Goldheart Assembly
Lunar Youth
Gentleman's Dub Club
The Cheek
Small Black
Morning Parade
White Hinterland
Fol-Chen
Lawson
Dog is Dead
Jamie Woon

Remember, festivals are notorious for last-minute lineup surprises and expect nothing else from Dot-to-Dot. Based on the festival's short but rich history, “Loads more to be announced� poster tagline and previous lineups, expect some fantastic announcements to be made in the coming weeks.