Summer - Music, mud, cider and...

I hope that all of you who were at Glastonbury have now got home safely with memories that will last a lifetime - in the best possible way. Tired no doubt and with post-festival blues quite likely. It's not mud, certainly not the cider, that is causing the withdrawal symptoms - it is the music.  I watched/listened to as much of Glastonbury as I could remotely and I must say I did think that I wished I was there more than once and not for the most part because of the Pyramid stage headline acts.  In many ways I'm quite certain that I could have very happily spent the whole weekend at the medium and small stages poking around for music less well known.
I wasn't there and it is not the same, so that is just theory, but I do know that there are plenty more festivals to come this summer. I shall be at some and for many of them there are still tickets available. They say 'hair of the dog' is the best cure for a hangover, or at least it postpones it somewhat.

I'm now thinking about my priorities; those acts that I most want to see from amongst the long list of available options. I think I should start with Latitude 2011, as it is now only 2½ weeks away (tickets are still available as of today). This is a list in no order of perceived merit and not least because some may clash as I don't know the timings.
One band that will not now be appearing at Latitude (or other overseas gigs) in 2011 is one that I have already mentioned as being amongst those that I was looking forward to: Violens (see announcement). Rest assured that something or someone worthwhile will take their place. At any festival there are things that will not go according to plan - from absentees to lyrics fluffed or simply forgotten - it is all part of the mix.
  
The first dozen on my must-see list (and I might well change my mind) are here in alphabetical order:

• Avi Buffalo
• Cat's Eyes
• Chapel Club
• Ed Sheeran
• Iron and Wine
• KT Tunstall
• Lykke Li
• The Bees
• The Gentle Good
• The National
• Trophy Wife
• Various Cruelties

This list is also limited to acts that I have never before seen live.  There are plenty of others, including many that I have seen live before, that will be in the reckoning too. It is necessary to start the process somewhere but the limiting factor is that, however good the planning and my subsequent discipline might be, I can only ever be in one place at once.