Dot To Dot Festival as seen by Daisy Kent – Music Photographer
Dot To Dot festival will always live down as the festival that has given us some of the best artists we’ve seen emerge in the past ten years. In 2021, we saw Sports Team headline the festival’s comeback after the hiatus the previous year due to the Coronavirus pandemic. In 2019, we saw the likes of Swim Deep, The Night Cafe, and Dream Wife take to the stage. The further you go back in its history, you can see the incredible influence this festival has had on emerging artists’ careers. Dermot Kennedy, Pale Waves, Easy Life, Fontaines D.C., Sundara Karma, Tom Brennan, Dua Lipa, The 1975 – all with Dot to Dot in common. The festival will always have an incomparable excitement which echoes around the floods of people who fill Bristol’s best venues on the late May bank holiday weekend, people eager to have the right to the humble brag of seeing a huge act before they get big. My own humble brag was watching DnB act Piri & Tommy last year at Strange Brew, before they graced Reading Festival and later signed to Polydor Records.
My most exciting catch of the day was Irish post-punk band The Murder Capital. After their performance at the 22nd Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival festival earlier in the year, there’s been an incredible buzz building around this band, whose angst-filled lyrics has captured the attention of thousands of people across the world, and amassed them over 135k monthly listeners on Spotify. The band’s performance was anything but monotonous; lead singer James McGovern climbing to stand atop of the pit barrier, and look across a completely packed-out O2 Academy. Fans below reached out for him towering over them, in true rock star style. But don’t be fooled – these guys aren’t just a front. Performing some of their most popular songs including the elaborate ‘Don’t Cling To Life’ and ‘Return My Head’, their set was incredibly euphoric and mesmerising, making their set one of my favourites from the day.
Dot to Dot has always been an influential platform for artists across all genres, showcasing its ability to diversify a festival lineup, and still make it flow nicely. Earlier in the day, after queuing in the direct heat from the sunshine bathing Bristol, I managed to catch a glimpse of rapper Nix Northwest, who put on an incredibly exciting performance earlier in the day in Thekla. It was the perfect set for a sunny day in the city, even if it was in a sweltering boat. Later on, in the same venue I caught Kofi Stone, returning after playing the festival for the first time in 2021. An incredibly gifted wordsmith, the London-born rapper brought a smooth fusion of the best of 90s hip hop and jazz, exciting a crowd who had been basking in the Bristol sunshine all day, with hits such as ‘It’s Ok to Cry’ (originally featuring Loyle Carner) and ‘Talk About Us’ – both taken from his 2019 album Nobody Cares Til Everybody Does.
From words written in the streets of Birmingham, to an incredibly complex artistry built in the very same college I studied at in my teens, Jojo Orme (most commonly known as Heartworms) brought a complete change of speed to my day back at O2 Academy. Gothic post-punk with biographical links to Orme’s own turbulent experiences growing up in a small town, Orme’s exaggerated extension of herself via her artist persona was one of the most exciting acts I saw on Saturday. Performing a small set of her best work including ‘24 Hours’ and ‘Retributions of an Awful Life’, the performance was utterly captivating, and something I won’t forget for a long time.
Finishing off my night by catching the last part of Leeds rock band Yard Act, I reflected on a day filled with excitement and new music over their performance of ‘100% Endurance’, thinking of the whole load of new artists to go home, listen to over and over again and watch grow and flourish from a distance over the next few years. Dot to Dot will always remain one of my favourite festivals, for the sole reason it’s not just a one-day-and-jobs-done festival; it’s something I can take home and mull over for weeks and months to come, right to next year’s lineup.
Daisy Kent @daisylkent
Role: Photographer / Reviewer / Interviewer
Hi! I'm Daisy, and I'm a music photographer and digital creative. I also write live music reviews.
Qualifications: 2:1 in BA Photography: Editorial and Advertising at the University of Gloucestershire.
Available for: Gig Shoots, Gig Reviews, Photo Shoots, Album and Single cover shoots, Interviews and Touring
First attended gig: Mcfly at Westonbirt Arboretum, June 2009.
First gig shot: My first photo gig was The Stranglers at O2 Academy Bristol, in March 2019. My first writing and photo gig was Bastille at Marble Factory, in February 2022.
Dream gig: Taylor Swift, 100%. No doubt.
