Weekends away: spring bank holiday weekend

Weekends away: spring bank holiday weekend The weekly-unless-there's-nothing-decent-happening clashguide to ensure you don't miss the good stuff at next weekend's worthwhile festivals:

Dot To Dot
Fred Perry sponsorship is all around. For some reason the usual Bank Holiday Monday Manchester date has been moved back to Friday which doesn't seem entirely in keeping with the alldayer flavour, but there you go. The headliners and big stage lineups are uniquely underwhelming this year and there aren't any of the usual surprising US visitors - trust us, we've seen Liars, Trail Of Dead and Beach House at D2D in the past - so these are a little more sparse than usual.

FRIDAY 24th - Manchester

15:45 Butcher The Bar (Deaf Institute)
16:05 Heart-Ships (Sound Control Loft)
17:30 Golden Fable (Attic)
18:00 Bipolar Sunshine (Gorilla)
20:30 Nadine Shah (SSR)
21:30 Blackeye (Attic)
21:45 Wolf Alice (Deaf Institute)
23:00 London Grammar (Gorilla)
23:30 Story Books (Joshua Brooks)
00:15 Bo Ningen (Zoo)
01:00 Pins (Sound Control Loft)

SATURDAY 25th - Bristol

13:30 The Lonely Tourist (Fleece)
17:30 Golden Fable (Louisiana)
18:15 London Grammar (Academy 1)
18:30 Pins (Thekla Top Deck)
19:30 Hawk Eyes (Thekla Top Deck)
20:00 Only Real (Thekla)
20:30 Bipolar Sunshine (Louisiana)
21:00 The Ramona Flowers (Exchange Basement)
21:30 Story Books (Birdcage)
22:15 Hysterical Injury (Stag & Hounds)
22:30 Wolf Alice (Louisiana)
23:00 Bo Ningen (Thekla)

SUNDAY 26th - Nottingham

14:00 Bitter Strings (Rock City Main)
14:30 Pins (Rescue Rooms)
16:00 Golden Fable (Red Room)
17:00 Hawk Eyes (Red Room)
18:00 We Three And The Death Rattle (Corner)
19:45 Gallery 47 (Rescue Rooms Bar)
20:00 Blackeye (Red Room)
20:30 Dancing Years (Stealth)
21:30 Bipolar Sunshine (Stealth)
23:15 Chapel Club (Rock City Basement)
23:30 Bo Ningen (Rescue Rooms)


Handmade Festival
Full disclosure, we're involved with the organisation of this festival, which really means sending out a lot of emails every couple of weeks and receiving two back, so you'll excuse the push, but if we weren't involved this new Leicester city festival using often unusual spaces - there's a pop-up cinema in a 15th century guildhall, for one thing - would be very much worth a look. Tickets only £25 for the three days too, an extra tenner if you want to see a Robin Ince-helmed afterparty on the Monday.

FRIDAY
Rolo Tomassi, Maybeshewill, Codex Leicester (People's Photographic Gallery)
Arcane Roots (Firebug)

SATURDAY
Johnny Foreigner, My First Tooth (Firebug)
Sam Duckworth, Grace Petrie (Cookie Jar)
We Were Promised Jetpacks (People's Photographic Gallery)
Her Name Is Calla, Peter Wyeth, Katie Malco (Bishop Street Methodist Church)

SUNDAY
Dutch Uncles, Tall Ships, Sky Larkin, Dark Dark Horse, Silent Devices (Firebug)
The Twilight Sad, We Three And The Death Rattle (Guildhall)
TE Morris (Leicester Castle)


Field Day
Ah, Field Day at Victoria Park. Intended as the hippest of village fetes, usually a throwback to one of those early 70s rock festivals where nobody could hear or eat anything other than mud, except without the natural ditches to relieve themselves into. Enter at your own risk.

12:55 Charlie Boyer & The Voyeurs (Laneway)
13:00 Gabriel Bruce (Eat Your Own Ears)
14:05 James Yorkston (Village Mentality)
14:30 Amateur Best (Red Bull Music Academy)
15:00 Dark Dark Dark (Shacklewell Arms)
16:10 Savages (Laneway)
16:40 Francois & The Atlas Mountains (Shacklewell Arms)
17:55 King Krule (Village Mentality)
18:15 Everything Everything (Eat Your Own Ears)
18:20 Connan Mockasin (Shacklewell Arms)
19:10 Wild Nothing (Shacklewell Arms)
19:30 Bat For Lashes (Eat Your Own Ears) OR Daughter (Laneway)
20:00 Toy (Shacklewell Arms)
20:20 Do Make Say Think (Village Mentality)
20:40 Four Tet (Eat Your Own Ears)
21:50 Animal Collective (Eat Your Own Ears)


Now We Are Weekender
We've been involved in promoting this too insomuch as we picked up about fifty abandoned flyers after they came to our alldayer in March. Based at The Public in West Bromwich and £23 for the two days there's actually two stages but nobody really seems to overlap so we can recommend a few names without fear of awkward clashes.

SATURDAY
15:40 MJ Hibbett and the Validators
17:00 August Actually
17:40 Eat Y'Self Pretty
18:20 Cosines
19:40 Victoria & Jacob
21:00 Ace Bushy Striptease
22:20 Allo Darlin'
23:00 Kid Canaveral

SUNDAY
14:00 MJ Hibbett & Steve present Total Hero Team
19:40 Shana Tova
22:20 Darren Hayman
23:00 Johnny Foreigner