Privacy fears over microchip that would replace tickets – and cash

“It’s going to be a whole lotta of fun tonight,” Liz Green sings, in her jazz-coated tones, on the perky 'Midnight Blues'. That’s about as jaunty as the 28-year-old’s music gets. She even warns us, jokily (and Green’s very droll, like a blend of Victoria Wood, Linda Smith and Beautiful South’s Paul Heaton), that “I’m going to try and depress you now,” before the exquisite lament 'Hey Joe', adding “it’s a sad song about my imaginary friend’s less than impressive love life.” 

With the daddy of them all taking a fallow year, 2012 is a chance for smaller festivals to show off their charm and diversity

Bruce Springsteen, Fiona Apple, barbecue – who needs them? Not Gillian Orr, who went off-piste in search of new acts to get excited about at the biggest and best music festival in America

Whistle stop

Rock and pop stars gearing up to play at British festivals this year may be playing to one man and his dog as festival-goers desert in their droves, according to new research.

Interest in the Big Chill has cooled, Glastonbury is too now commercial... Summer festivals need to get creative andreinvent themselves if they hope to survive, says Lena Corner

Interest in The Big Chill has cooled, Glastonbury is too commercial... Summer music festivals need to get creative and reinvent themselves to survive

A BBC executive said the corporation was "delivering value for money" on the day it published expenses claims showing senior staff claimed thousands of pounds for taxi journeys and entertaining.

The 'Only Girl (In the World) hitmaker will make her only UK performance of 2012 at the London event, topping the bill on the final night of July 8. 

For entertainment journalists, covering a music festival is as close as most will come to war reporting.

Glastonbury Festival organiser Michael Eavis has called for Chinese lanterns to be banned nationwide. Revellers smuggle them into the festival site and send the paper, wire and lit wax candle lanterns into the sky.