In the face of these difficulties, the incredible crew of volunteers that organise the festival managed to pull something out of the bag. They patched the holes, raided some piggy banks and hey presto, a festival. It didn’t quite work like clockwork this year, but Saturday was a definitely a success. After all this effort, and years of great work, the future of the festival was finally decided by the torrential rain that fell over Bristol on Saturday night. Access to the site by vehicle was made incredibly difficult, with the emergency services announcing that they could not get on site, and therefore, the festival could not open (for it would be in breach of its license). The loss of a days revenue was enough to finish the festival off. Yesterday, it was announced that the festival is to be liquidated.

Although I no longer live in Bristol, I personally consider this a great loss to the city. I grew up with the festival during the 90s (a useful list of lineups since 1994), and it inspired me to get involved in promoting music (both live and otherwise). I became a volunteer at the festival at the end of the 90s, and have taken great pleasure in helping to nurture it over the years. I was initially invited to sit on the festival music committee – a group of local promoters and music industry heads who listen to all of the demos that get sent to the festival, in order to make the arduous decision about who should play. I also crewed stages at the festival, and moved on to supervise both the main and amphitheatre stages.

Over the years, there have been highs and lows. A few that stick out include

• looking after Robert Plant and watching him almost get mobbed by 1000ish Led Zep fans, despite being surrounded by security escorts
• being accused of being scientists, undertaking experiments in a portakabin on the main stage, by a slightly worse for wear GLC
• Super Furry Animals‘ tour manager throwing his phone on the floor and quitting shortly prior to their set, with no sign of a band, and no means of us contacting them
• and finally, the fact that The Fall will be the last ever band to play the festival seems somewhat symbolic, but I’m not sure how yet

This loss will leave a hole in the Bristol summer musical calendar, and I sincerely hope that at some point in the future it is filled with an equally worthwhile event.

I have just discovered that nva will stage their next major event – Half Life – in Mid Argyll (not a million miles from Oban).

Kilmartin and North Knapdale are home to an unbelievable concentration of standing stones, burial cairns, henges, duns, mills and earlier Neolithic cup and ring marked rocks. With the Corrievreckan, the third largest whirlpool in the world, guarding the entrance to Crinan Moss and Dunadd the earliest seat of the Scottish Kings, it carries an importance that spans 5,000 years of human development.

The production has two dynamic elements. An audience of up to 10,000 will be invited to freely explore a specifically selected range of iconic locations throughout the day, using a specially designed guide. By night, they will be transported to a forest for an outdoor production, above the ancient fort of Dunadd, the birthplace of Scotland. Here they will enter a vast set constructed out of thousands of cut logs spreading across the recently deforested landscape.

If that doesn’t sound almighty, I don’t know what does.

First if all I found Flavorpill, and then Kultureflash – these were a start. The problem is that they don’t tell me what events are coming up in the longer term. Being in London, this is a problem because anything vaguely good seems to sell out very far in advance. Finding out that something exciting is happening next week is often not very useful.

I was over the moon when I realised that last.fm, my favourite online source of music, not only predicts what music I would like to listen to (based on what I have listened to in the past) – it predicts what gigs I might want to go to. This was great, except I had to keep checking back to see what new events were being recommended. Then I realised that they also provide RSS feeds of London-based events that are likely to be of interest to me. You too can keep up to date with what is of interest to me! Or alternatively, set up a profile, train it to your music taste, and then let it predict gigs of interest to you.

This new finding led me to purchase tickets to see Slint in August at Koko in Camden. Magic.

In my new flat, in Edinburgh, I have a musical tap. When on, the tap creates a high but constant tone, with turning the tap varying the pitch.

It makes washing all the more exciting.

(24 September 2005, departing Bristol city-centre)

All I will say is that, additional creativity aside, the opportunity to be guided up an exposed and dangerous landscape at night in the safety of an organised, and slightly odd-ball, group was one of the best feelings. The event, certainly on the surface, would seem to have had an immense impact on the local community – I have never seen any arts-based activity be so widespread.

Other exciting features of the trip to Skye:

The West Highland line

Best train journey ever, well, in the UK anyway. Glasgow to Mallaig, it really did provide a sense of a landscape unfolding pre-Storr. You swiftly move from the inner city to industrial to immense countryside. Skirting around Ben Nevis, and climbing to a surprisingly high altitude, the views are amazing. This is the sort of journey which would be perfect on a clear day, or in a massive storm.

Public transport on Skye

The local bus operator are slightly crazy. Locals on the island all seem to love their local bus service, calling it ‘very good’ and ‘very frequent’. Unfortunately, the 4-times per day frequency on the routes made it very hard to interchange between buses at Portree, the timings didn’t align – so we had to take a taxi 17 miles to our camp site. It would seem that the local bus operator also only has 1 price, a single journey from Armadale (where the boat docks) to Portree (the ‘capital’ of the island) costs £6 single. It also costs £6 for a return. Alternatively, you can buy an all-day ticket (noted by many as ‘good value’) for £6. The all-day ticket isn’t all that useful though, because it is very hard to actually catch more than one bus in a day.

I also liked the friendly touch, there was to be no eating or drinking on the bus, and you must not put your bag on a seat. A sign politely mentioned that ‘if you damage the seatbelts, then your parents will be billed for the damage’.

And on transport integration, it was nice to see the bus driver collecting sandwiches to take to the ferry staff, and collecting and delivering newspapers to the southern end of the island.

Silence

Staffin campsite was possibly the quietest place ever. There was actually not a single sound on Saturday morning when we woke up. Not quite like East Street, Sarah pointed out.

The other major silence for the trip was at The Storr itself, the audience were mostly amazing and deadly silent, stunned to silence I think. I was.

for those who don’t know it, you can listen to me.