Rhythm Festival 2011 - Brief Review

Good Points

Fine selection of bands over three stages. Plenty for the blues lover, including Mud Morganfield, 9 Below Zero, Oli Brown and Sherman Robertson, although Eddie C. Campbell was a no show. Highlights for me included the Oysterband, Archie Brown, Missing Andy, Sean Taylor, Hobo Jones, Jack Bruce, and, somewhat surprisingly, Sandi Thom. Nick Lowe not on long enough and Toots passed his best - this view probably coloured by waiting about an hour in the pissing rain for him to make an appearance and then having to suffer a "guest appearance" by his daughter before he ventured on stage. Caught a bit of Apart From Rod on the Mesurier stage before leaving on the last night, who were far more entertaining.

Good Venue (but see below) and reasonably priced food (for a festival!)

Bad Points 

Loads of teething problems, including a badly run beer tent (beer running out, poorly organised), poor and not enough toilets, far too few rubbish facilities, stages not 'time staggered' so you couldn't catch bands on more than one stage cos no real overlap, poor lighting so some areas down right dangerous. Apparently, camping facilities weren't terrific either, but as I am far too precious to camp I can't comment.

A lot of people have compared 2011 unfavourably to previous events but this was our first so wouldn't know. Overall, well worth it but the problems definitely need resolving for a repeat visit to be in order. We've seen many festivals do it better, but it woudn't take much for the Rhythm festval to hit the mark next year