Thanks for this.
I think this was originally posted on their Twitter back in mid-May, but it's nice to see it again.
Makes me excited for two weeks on Sunday.

Is the Lovell telescope out of action at the moment? Caught a bit of BBC Breakfast live from Jodrell Bank this morning and the big dish is kind of just lying on its back.Think I read something a while back that it won’t be operating during Bluedot. So if not, I’m guessing there’ll be no visuals projected on to it like there was in 2013? Bit disappointing if this is correct.

See my post #10 on page 1 on this thread

Weather forecast is dryer for Sunday which is the only day I’m going for. However, 2 days of rain will have turned the site into a mud bath by then. Not overly excited about seeing NO this time.After last weekend’s madness and insanity at Noisily festival in the woods in Leicestershire ( and partaking of a , ahem, certain psychedelic drug) Bluedot will probably seem very sane and
safe. And the Lovell dish is out of action. Ah well, I’ve paid for the ticket now.

I'm going to play it by ear.
I'm only going Sunday, so will see what things are like that morning. I have a friend there for the whole weekend and she's giving me regular weather updates (currently a 'filth pit'; her words).

If it's still just as bad by Sunday morning (very likely), I'll get pissed in Manchester instead (which is where I'm staying).

I gave up getting soaked through, muddy and miserable in my 20s. Can't be arsed with that nonsense in my late 40s.

Getting rained on and wet i can handle (well, to an extent), it's when the ground turns to mud i can't accept.

Well, the weather stayed fine until ten minutes before NO came on stage. Fine drizzle throughout the gig, which was actually quite pleasant (cooling etc.).
Tipped it down shortly after the set.
But generally pretty reasonable under foot.

Gig was great. Band sounded good. No surprises in the setlist but some really great performances; Sub-Culture and Blue Monday were highlights for me. The JD numbers sounded good too (SLC, Transmission, Atmosphere and LWTUA). No OTT whooping etc.
Barney missed out the bridge in TPK which I thought was odd. I’m not 100% on this but I thought he also missed out the last verse of True Faith too (maybe I just ‘switched off’ and missed it though).
I’ve said it before, but I REALLY wish they’d revert back to ‘classic’ True Faith. The version they do live is a bit wimpy, IMHO.

The audience were very appreciative and sang along quite a bit. Lots of youngsters getting into it.

Very glad I went. A good day out.

Pretty enjoyable once I moved to a more central spot facing the stage. For the first few numbers my brother and I were to the right of the stage as you looked at it and the wind was just blowing the sound all over the shop, it was pretty bad sound. In the end after a few songs I said to my brother I was going to find a more central spot. He however didn’t join me as he wanted to stay near easy access to the bar.

Interesting to see the films for She’s Lost Control and Transmission. One of them had an Unknown Pleasures flag fluttering in the wing in various windswept desolate locations, desert or something.

Once I got more central I also made my way nearer to the front and was pretty close by the time they played True Faith, Blue Monday, Temptation and the encore of Atmosphere and LWTUA. Was happy to see them play Atmosphere. Would have taken that or Decades but Atmosphere it was.

Your Silent Face took me by surprise quite early in the set. Expected them to play that much later. Bernard cracked me up after that song; he tried to say he never tires of playing that song but got all his words jumbled up and ended up saying “ I never play of tiring that song “.

Yep I’d seen the weather forecast was rain right about the time NO were scheduled to take to the stage and right on cue it indeed started to rain and continued all the way through the set though mostly just a light spray . Nice to keep cool to though. Rained much more heavily after New Order finished though and the site rapidly turned to very slippery mud again. My brother had by this time called it a night and gone back to sleep in the car. I battled on for a while, grabbing some more food and drink and had a look in the Orbit tent and Nebula tent. Both playing dance music but packed out and getting in was almost impossible. A few little places here and there playing music but my glasses were constantly getting covered in rain so what with the mud also , I finally called it a night and finally found my way back to the car and slept til the morning.

Oh and we caught a Jerry Damners DJ set in one marquee in the late afternoon. He was playing loads of old obscure French music and such , accompanied by weird old clips from obscure old sci- fi films.

Had a bit of a look round the science and moon stuff.

Oh and I quite liked the electronic wristband thing. Made getting a drink at the bar very straightforward.

A fairly good day out but the dish was out of action and there was too much mud at the end of the night but I enjoyed for the most part NO’s set. Their 2013 gig there was better though; fantastic weather that time and the visuals projected onto the dish and the lasers were great. Ah well.

The more I think about it, I'm wondering if Bernard has got rid of the autocue.
With the two (possibly) mistakes in The Perfect Kiss and True Faith mentioned above, it seems likely that he was without 'guidance'.
Also, he seemed to be all over the stage, which made me think that he wasn't particularly watching monitors etc.

Kind of hope he is 'sans autocue'. I like the idea of f**k ups at a New Order gig. Makes it seem more authentic.

Now I've had time to digest this gig, I really think it was a pretty special performance. They sounded bloody brilliant and the light show and mini-movies looked spectacular. One of my favourite gigs I've ever been to.

Oh, and as always, Steve is just incredible. How that man keeps going like he does, I will never know.
He is a machine, I'm convinced.

I've got to admit i had a great day and thought new order were superb

The line up was terrible though every band or artist i saw was shocking.....a pity the go team cancelled as i don't mind them

Spent most of our day at the little dj stand 'time warp disco' jumping about like baboons with the help of dodgy substances,,,,i was reliving my past after all

Yeah I caught some of Anna Calvi and then John Grant. I like some of Grant’s stuff but neither him or Calvi really got me interested at Bluedot. Friday and Saturday had a lot more stuff up my street but I wasn’t there on those days.

Not sure I’d go to Bluedot again; it seemed very family oriented which isn’t my bag. Kids and picnics everywhere. Maybe there were more kids this year as parents brought them because of all the moon landing anniversary stuff. Not to say the moon stuff doesn’t interest me but a lot of it seemed more for kids.

The festival could have done more to combat the mud. I didn’t see any straw put down to soak up mud. Also, the stench of toilets never seemed much more than a few feet away wherever we were .

I’ve looked at photos of the last one or two Bluedot and each year the Lovell Telescope is in that lying on its arse position. How many years has the repair and stuff been going on for??? A lot of write ups going on about the telescope being the great focal point of the festival but personally I thought it was massively disappointing that the dish was not upright in all its glory. Would have been great to have visuals projected on to it. A big shame it wasn’t upright for the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing.

On the positive side, I did eat a fantastic Falafel from one of the countless food outlets! Oh and had a great Cornish pasty after New Order. But the drinks were so , so diluted.Ah well.

I enjoyed Anna Calvi and John Grant myself (both second time of watching them live for me), but that’s my preference, after all. I even felt the sound making of some of Grant’s tunes kind of New Order-ish! You know, all this sequencer thing and that.

Regrettably I had to miss out Gogo Penguin as half of their time slot clashed with New Order — in the meantime I was occupied to secure my place in the front of the main stage.

I am a Bluedot first timer, too, and fair enough, it’s a very family oriented festival for sure. But that’s Bluedot for you and they are very good at that IMHO.

Yes, it is a great pity they didn’t make use of the Lovell Telescope as a projector screen — even in its current sitting position, which was disappointing to say the least. But what I felt when I saw that glorious light show 2013 with the dish being upright was, gosh, this looks like a lot of dosh thrown in to make this happen...go figure.

Edited by user 23 July 2019 19:00:12(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified