The Summer Music Festival is well and truly underway now and it’s time for my annual favourite – the Summer Sundae Weekender. Unfortunately I’ll have to refrain from indulging in the usual fantastic range of Real Ales at Summer Sundae this year as I’ll be covering the festival for Virtual Festivals. So given that the beer is off the essentials list, what has made it on to the list?

I love going to a new city and finding out where the local bands are playing. Norwich is no exception and was recently named in NME as one of the hotbeds of unsigned indie talent. Central to this is the Brickmakers and its live music venue B2.

It’s not just the music that people go to gigs for but it’s a fair comment to say that a lot of up and coming bands (as well as some successful bands) forget that. I remember seeing the Verve on the main stage at the V festival a decade or so ago. Musically they were fantastic, and you’d have been hard pushed to tell the difference between listening to their live performance and their CD, but that’s part of the problem…