London Fleadh

I was given a free ticket to the Fleadh Festival at Finsbury Park in London, which, I must admit, is the only reason I went, and the only reason I'd ever go again. This is an Irish-themed festival sponsored by Guinness so most of the bands/artists were either Irish or played some form of folk or Irish-folk music, which does nothing to explain the headliners, James, who, I should point out, were fantastic.

It was a pleasant enough festival as the weather was nice, it wasn't ridiculously crowded so we could sit comfortably in the sun and listen to Canadian bands play Irish-folk version covers of REM tunes and the odd decent act, but we were rather bored for most of the day. If you want a hard core ROCK festival with lots of crowdsurfing, people jumping around and emphatic enthusiasm then Fleadh is not for you.

That said, the facilities were very clean, we were able to bring our own food in and the few shops/stalls they had were reasonable and comprised the usual festival tat. Too many goofy hats for my liking, but those seem to have gone out of fashion in the last couple of years anyway.

If you want a nice family-friendly music festival and you like Guinness then Fleadh is great.

P.S. I've rated camping a '0' but only because there was none as this is a one-day festival.