It is supposed to be summer... Virtual Festival 1

It's the 4th July - which is just another day here in the UK, but it is supposed to be a summer day. Is that so? - fat chance!
Worse still, the radio stations have gone to pot as well. It is, and this is clearly an import from the US, the 'High School Prom' season and while that is a fairly recent import in the UK calendar, and with which I do not have a problem, I really wonder if what the radio stations have decided to play "in honor" bears a resemblance to any contemporary trend!
It seems to consist mostly of pop and disco ballads from 1975 -1988, which were all released far before the current protagonists were born. I'm not against the revival of old music, far from it in fact, but I think that this programming is actually aimed at an older audience - probably the parents of those school-leavers.

The radio was turned off early this evening and the advantage of having a sizable music collection of my own, whether currently in vogue or not, became very apparent and I'm old enough to make my own bad choices in music! I did think about the possibility of doing a mid-year 'favourites' list but have decided to do something different over the next few days and that is to try and decide which acts would appear, if I were arranging a festival line-up this so-called summer, and I will exclude any act that I have already seen performing live.

Every festival needs at least one infectious feel-good band and this would be my first choice:

This is a live DVD, recorded at Pure Groove in London in 2008.

In the last couple of years the seemingly impossible has happened and the UK has taken at least some notice of 'country music' if only in the cross-over formats. That said, this has to be one of the most improbable artists to play a part in that change...

This is a promo copy (PROP 05309) of Cock A Hoop (2003).

Since then she has returned to Wales and, as she is bilingual, may well reappear later in this list.