Was just checking out the weather forecast for Electric Picnic. here's what I found.According to AccuWeather.com

Friday, Sep 4
Partly Sunny w/ Showers
a couple of showers. Winds from the WSW at 25 km/h.
High: 13 °C

Friday Night, Sep 4
Rain
a chance of rain. Winds from the WSW at 17 km/h.
Low: 9 °C

Saturday, Sep 5
Partly Sunny
partly sunny. Winds from the SW at 17 km/h.
High: 17 °C

Saturday Night, Sep 5
Mostly Clear
mainly clear. Winds from the SSW at 11 km/h.
Low: 8 °C

Sunday, Sep 6
Rain
periods of rain. Winds from the S at 22 km/h.
High: 18 °C

Sunday Night, Sep 6
Rain
rain. Winds from the S at 16 km/h.
Low: 13 °C

And if you prefer a more visual representation, via FallingRain.com

Doesn't look great, but it won't stop the fun

Nailler9's Electric Picnic Mix Tape. Get it for the drive up people. It'll rock. Downloading it as we speak.

Who I'll probably check out:

• Micachu & the Shapes
• Okkervil River
• The Acorn
• Simian Mobile Disco
• Florence & the Machine
• Fleet Foxes
• Royksopp
• Passion Pit
• Flaming Lips
• Basement Jaxx

Oh the bittersweet tragedy of festival timetables. Above is a playlist of some of the bands I hope to see on the Sunday. There's no one I was really dying to see until quite late on the Sunday, and then of course several of them clash

Royksopp kick off at about 8.30pm, and Passion Pit start at 9pm. Both acts I really wanted to see in their entirety. Plus I hate running from one to the other, you lose time plus you end up right at the back of the crowd for at least one of them unless your prepared to be really pig headed and barge through the crowd which I'm not. Usually.

Same goes for the Flaming Lips who kick off at 10.15pm with Basement Jaxx on their heels at 10.30pm. I saw Basement Jazz at Electric Picnic before and they were incredible, but I've never seen the Flaming Lips.

Oh well. Who cares, it's going to be a BLAST.

WHOOP WHOOP!

There's just no let up. I probably shouldn't have started researching bands - there are so many I hadn't heard of that I now just have to see. And looking at Saturday the choices start to become very difficult.

Cap Pas Cap who I never heard of seem pretty good, same goes for Lost Brothers and Low Anthem, so I'll try to make all of them.

Several people told me to go see Marina & the Diamonds, but she clashes with Roots Manuva. I really liked "Run Come Save Me" so the chance to see Witness (1 hope) played live wins out over the quirky beauty of Marina & the Diamonds I think. Tough call though.

Then you have Jazzanova at 5pm who sounds reallly great, but they clash with Jape - another really tough call. I've seen Jape a few times this year, but he rocked EP last year, and there's nothing like hearing Floating live at Electric Picnic. Another band I never heard of, Magnolia Electric Co. also clash with Jape & Jazzanova, and they also sound lovely.

Jape finishes at 6.15pm and it's looks like it might be time for a bit of running around. I might catch the start of Bat for Lashes, but I'll definitely be running off to see The Whitest Boy Alive.

After TWBA I might go and catch the end of James Murphy & Pat Mahoney's LCD Soundsystem Disco Set.

I think I'll have to catch a bit of Madness. I decided not to go see them a few years back and I regretted it when I could hear them from my house. A couple of songs would probably do me.

Then I might take a little nap on the ground somewhere before heading to see Moderat who's name sounds familiar and are really impressing me. That means missing 2 Many DJ's but I saw them earlier in the year, so I'm ok with that. it also mean missing Chris Cunningham though, who is doing some audio visual thing which is meant to be great, so we'll see.

Best laid plans of course.

Started trying to figure out what bands I would see based on a timetable which may or may not be accurate and comparing bands I never heard of on Youtube - the result is above, it's a playlist of nine videos in the order the bands may be playing on the Friday night... see you there! Hopefully more playlists to follow if I can get the research time!!!

Soundcheck is a new indie club night in Dublin (Ireland), and I have it on good authority that it will rock.

Want to know more?

There's a SoundCheck blog, a SoundCheck myspace page, and there's a SoundCheck FaceBook group too!.

SoundCheck launches tomorrow, so go check it out if you're in Dublin!

SoundCheck launch night: May 29th, 8-11pm @ Spy. €5 at the door
DELORENTOS (DJ Set)
Sounds of a System Breakdown
UnaRocks (SoundCheck DJs)

A monthly club evening (8pm - 11pm), we will endeavour to bring you a unique mixture of art, music and people.

Only the most awesome and interesting bands will DJ and perform live. The newest acts and the freshest tunes will combine to bring you supreme enjoyment.

There I was, finger on my mouse button from quarter to nine - at nine am on the dot I saw the tickets become available. I went for the Thursday night show since I figured it might be less trafficked than the Wednesday or the Friday (Friday being Friday and Wednesday being the night a lot of links went to by default).

I entered the captcha, got the searching graphic... for EIGHT minutes before it threw up an error... aaaarrrrghhh...

Ok don't panic, search again, I went through this for Leonard Cohen and got great tickets...

Ok, search for 2 tickets, best available... read the captcha word... WAIT A MINUTE!

No tickets available.

Think I have a case for emotional damage?

Luckily a friend of mine got two tickets and kindly offered the second ticket to me, so I still get to go to Tom Waits. Phew!

UPDATE: Looks like TicketMaster staggered the release of tickets and there are actually still tickets available now for all nights, at time of writing...

Radiohead commissioned a report on how to reduce their carbon footprint while touring and discovered that it is the fans travelling to and from concerts which contributes the most to the carbon footprint of a gig.

This is now apparently widely acknowledged in the industry, and Radiohead have tried to book venues that are as central as possible to allow fans to use public transport to get to their concerts.

The band are appealling to fans to think about how they travel to and from their concerts to make every effort to reduce the carbon footprint of Radiohead's gigs.

Radiohead play Malahide Castle in Dublin in June, and MCD.ie sent out an email which included the appeal, but of course the email did not provide any useful tips on transport to Malahide Castle which would help with the cause, but the MCD website at least provides a link to Radiohead's website which after a bit of digging around has this to say about Malahide:

Please use public transport to reach the venue if possible. A special Dublin Bus Shuttle Service will leave every 15 minutes from Burgh Quay. You can also take the scheduled Dublin Bus route 42 from the city centre. Visit www.dublinbus.ie for more details.

Every fifteen minutes starting when I wonder? Anyway, if you are using the shuttle service, get an early one - last time I used a Dublin bus shittle service to go to a Radiohead gig we missed the first act, which happened to be Beck!

After I bought my Leonard Cohen tickets I said to my friend 'I wonder how long now before Tom Waits plays here...' and lo and behold...

Tom Waits is confirmed to play Dublin this summer. Incredible. How many years have we been waiting for this?

He is going to play in a custom built tent in Phoenix park, despite allegedly having been offered much more money to play open air. According to Hot Press he wanted to play in a tent after hearing positive reports from friends who had played the Marquee in Cork.

So you can all thank us folk in the Real Capital for the more intimate surroundings you will get to hear this legend in

They haven't announced when tickets will go on sale yet, or how much they will be, but it doesn't really matter - I am there.

So Paul Simon is playing Live at the Marquee. I've been so out of the loop lately I didn't even hear until a few weeks back. The official line is that tickets are sold out, and several people told me they were, but a quick check on Ticketmaster seems to show tickets still available. Not great tickets, obviously, but tickets all the same.

I was tempted to get tickets, but it's expensive enough and there are just too many great gigs this Summer and I'm already going to too many of them!