Summer in the UK means, well, you know…the R-word. Rain is a dead cert’ for 2010 and as much as we like to laugh it off it does start to get on our wicks a little. ’But wait TNC’, I hear you screaming over your grande latte, ‘it’s not all bad, surly?’ And you’d be right. We accept the rain like an unwelcome relative and get to laugh it off by heading to some of the best festivals the UK has to offer.
2010 has already proven to be a great success for music and for the alternative scene and Hop Farm Festival is going to kick start one of the greatest summer festival season we have ever had the good honour of telling you about!
I have one name to say to you and that is simply Bob Dylan. We don’t expect to get close, and we don’t expect an interview (though Niger’s has the balls to try his best), but what we do expect is the rare chance to see one of the 20th Centuries greatest music icons who needs neither an introduction or a bio.
There’s the Oscar, the 500 songs, and the near 40+ albums to his name. His music and life inspired the movie ‘I’m Not There’ and he’s even acted a time or two. Nothing really puts into words the contribution that Bob Dylan has had on folk/popular music. His keen insight and history is one that could almost seem untrue and with that he holds a real uniqueness and beauty that few arts today have managed to maintain. For true Dylan fans this performance is probably going to be an emotional one but one they will cherish and respect for the rest of their lives.
This morph is hard, to be able to write something that links life, that gives power to something that is only words and music. His gift allowed him to, lyrically, write his depiction of the lynching in the US in the 1960s of the school by Emmett Till in his son The Death of Emmett Till:
Twas down in Mississippi not so long ago,
When a young boy from Chicago walked through a
Southern door.
This boy’s fateful tragedy you should all remember well,
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till.
The summer just got it’s first real bout of honest sunshine. The New Current will be doing more previews and keeping you upto date with what’s going on at Hop Farm, and if your there let us know and we’ll buy you a drink.
