Thoughts on music: A festival road trip...

I have had ideas about this, as the time comes near for two three-day festivals in quick succession. On Monday I read an interesting, albeit statistically flimsy (only 504 interviewees, for one thing) article on the BBC website.
I'm not one of those polled and not least because I have never bought a ticket via Eventbrite. I could argue with a few other 'facts' too. There are actually many hundreds of UK festivals - the figure mentioned is probably just that for which Eventbrite handles ticketing and therefore has data.
Nevertheless, although I would not self-identify as a 'super-fan' (their description but maybe there is a ring of truth) I do share several of the traîts highlighted: I am male and I quite happily attend festivals alone. I am also inclined to rail against the tendency of festivals to become more 'corporate', that is dependent on brand sponsorship.
One thing I certainly do not do is spend my money on is luxury camping. My basic tent is there for just one reason - shelter whilst sleeping - and its contents therefore only what I regard as vital and can therefore be bothered to carry from the car park to the camp site. The car acts as a repository for everything else, should it be needed.
Another point that I will mention is that attending a festival solo does not in any way correlate with loneliness. I find that the opposite is true and think about that when I observe groups of friends that spend most of the festival in the campsite. Each to their own; if you attend alone but are gregarious then there is only one option - and that is engaging with strangers.

I admit that the prospect was scary the first time but on arrival (at Latitude 2007) the matter was almost immediately rendered void. In a queue with lots of strangers, waiting at the wristband exchange, the obvious thing to do is that you talk to one another. It happened again, but in a rather different way, a few weeks ago at Truck Festival 2016. I was there, with not a care in my own little world, but in front of me was a group of teenagers at their first ever festival: totally stressed and already arguing with each other, about nothing remotely important, before they had even got to the ticket exchange.
"What's the problem?" A short silence... and then every one of them was suddenly talking (to me) all at once. There was no real problem except that, even as a group, they felt adrift in an alien environment.
Once at a festival it is another world - I got back from Truck Festival still entirely unaware of the coup attempt in Turkey.

Before I head off to South Wales in ten days time here are a few things that, while not necessarily at all relevant to where I am headed, would form part of my virtual road trip. The first has been released but the other two have not, which is a slight snag I guess. I'll see what I can find as regards track releases from the forthcoming records.

Amy Goddard - Secret Garden (self released, 18 April 2016).

This is from the album launch...

The Maiden's Leap - recorded live, 22 April 2016.

Amanda Shires - My Piece of Land (BMG Music licensing, 16 September 2016).
Here is the track 'Harmless' from the forthcoming LP.

This next is somewhat tricky, for I have listened to the album throughout several times already. I'll just have to see what I can come up with...