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Isle of Wight Festival

There once was a time when Itchy would not have thought any festival could be more fun than Glastonbury. We were completely in lust with the line-up, the hippies and even the mud. But as we look back on our time there we realise that there are dark sides to the festival overlord. The weather is usually a downer. The site is so enormous that even getting a cup of tea feels like a Duke of Edinburgh excursion, and clashes in the line up mean that you only see eight out of the 43 bands you were dying to watch, and you were holding your mate's hair back for two of them. Well step up Isle of Wight, you are our new festival mistress.

This fairly modern but remarkably prolific festival has been pulling some massive names and some glorious weather for the past couple of years, making its £150 ticket price a bit of a bargain, although the slightly inconvenient ferry tickets will push costs up. At least we can say we've been overseas this summer. There's a bit of a lack of activity outside of the music genre, but let's not pretend any of us ever actually visited the spoken word tent anyway.

Isle of Wight festival is the one to choose if you're looking for a no-hassle weekend. The site is big length-wise but diminutive in comparison to festival monsters such as Reading and Leeds. Campsites (and toilets) are as calm, clean and accessible as can be expected, and the trek to the main stage, though trying, only has to be endured once a day if you're organised.

Our favourite plus is that there are only three stages, with the Big Top taking an obvious backseat to the Main Stage, and the Acoustic Stage tagging along for the ride. This means that as long as you make your peace with missing a couple of nostalgia acts (Reef, Steve Harley and the Cockney Rebel) or pop acts (The Saturdays, N-Dubz), you can settle at the main stage and enjoy the killer line-up without stressing about what's going on elsewhere.

Thanks to our visit we've danced like banshees to Vampire Weekend, Pink and Florence and the Machine, we've tried to act cool in front of Jay-Z, The Strokes and Editors and we've sung until our lungs burned with Blondie, Spandau Ballet and Paul McCartney. All in glorious, unexpected sunshine. Our only niggling complaint is that you're not allowed to bring alcohol, or indeed any drink that's not a sealed bottle of water, beyond the campsite. Itchy does not approve of this money-making scheme which impedes our fun and empties our wallets. But, on balance, it's a small price to pay for three days of good British fun.

www.isleofwightfestival.com

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