Virgin

Okay, so I have no YouTube access here in mainland China which has made sharing the latest installment of my world tour all that more difficult… But with V Festival Australia goodness to come, take a sneak peek at the rest of my Global V Pass adventures so far…

Finally they meet. UK V Blogger (and incidentally, the winner of the Global V Pass) Eleanor Conway and Leopard Lady of the Sunshine State (winner of the Gold Coast V Blog challenge of ‘08) crossed paths at the not-muddy-at-all Gold Coast V Festival 2009…

With only a few days until the Australian V Festivals kick off, and with me, Eleanor Conway, your trusty Global VPass winner already en route, thought it might be time to whet your appetite with my first tour diary. London to Hong Kong to Sydney… all in a day’s work!

Getting her cherry taken by a virgin is no mean feat for the people’s intrepid music reporter and winner of Virgin’s Global VPass competition - Eleanor Conway. Talking to the ‘Band to Watch 2009′ - The Virgins, The Ellenoid hits the Notting Hill Arts Club in order to cater to said precocious rock starlets’ yearning to learn of who their ‘Fan to Watch 2009′ should be. Criteria? No tasers. And the ability to be silent. Quality. Wonder if Peaches Geldof fits the bill? Some newspapers are reporting that she is apparently ‘besotted’ with Virgins frontman Donald Cumming after splitting with husband Max Drummey…

2008 has been a crazy year and has seen the conclusion of two world defying political campaigns. First we had Obama vying for the best seat in the world, and second we had Eleanor Conway on her campaign to become Virgin’s global reporter in 2009. While Barack started his campaign by going door to door through the United States of America, Eleanor took to the streets and fields of the UK to tout for your votes. Features Justice, Sam Sparro, The Presets, Glasvegas, Elbow…

Classically trained Julian and Kim from The Presets have hit London town bringing in tow half of the world’s Antipodean population as a matter of course. With a longstanding tit fetish, a secret Minogue lust and the ability to fluster the Conway, Eleanor Conway Presents: The Presets in association with music.virgin.com

From Australia to Canada to the US to the UK - our league of aspiring music journalists have been treated to free tickets to Virgin Festivals in their part of the world in return for sharing their festival adventures with us on music.virgin.com. So a massive big huge thank you to all of our fantastic contributors who have been blogging like… bloggers for the better part of this year in the hope that they will win the awesome grand prize of trips to a Virgin Festival in every participating country throughout 2009, starting with Australia in March. It’s been a close and hard fought contest and even though it feels a shame that there can only be one winner (you’re all winners in our eyes - ahhhh) we’re delighted to announce the ulimate winner of the Global VPass…

Knife fights, street crime and single parent families… it sounds like the backdrop of a quintessential Panorama special as opposed to your NME touting, Alan McGee championing supergroup, also known as Glasvegas. They’ve had a fruitful summer, selling 56, 000 copies of their debut album ‘Glasvegas’ in it’s first week of release and winging their way into the hearts of the nation. In association with music.virgin.com Eleanor Conway Presents: Glasvegas - in a rare insight into the band, the album and how to clean those grubby doors of perception.

What happens on tour, stays on tour - until now. I’ve got 3 signed copies of Justice’s Across The Universe (Live CD + Tour footage) to giveaway…

Fan of Goldfrapp? Fancy winning yourself one of three signed Limited Edition CD + bonus DVD copies of Seventh Tree? Fresh from their dates at the marvellous Carling Academy this weekend - a show where Narnia meets Pagan folklore, Eleanor Conway Presents: 3 signed LE copies of Seventh Tree to giveaway. All you have to do to win is join the Eleanor Conway Presents: Facebook Fan Page…

The very first set that I watched last weekend was Mardeen. The cute power-pop boys from Halifax started things off right, light and upbeat. Mardeen aren’t very well known, but still managed to draw a sizable crowd to the TD side stage gaining new fans - including myself! Think Tokyo Police Club but more melodic. I now enjoy listening to them as I bake cookies. Listening to Mardeen is like baking cookies you guys!

Ladyhawke looks good on paper, a hot, multi-talented chick with camera happy appeal, wielding a highly strung guitar as the crotch level musical sword it is. Hot on the trail are a mob of followers waiting to be knighted by this mop of feline, fringed, feistiness, wrapped up with tight songs, a tight look, and a tight band.

Okay, on the cusp of going off to watch my fringed up sista’ Ladeee hawk this Saturday at the marvellous Koko’s in olde Camden Tawn (of which I will talk more of on Monday) I though I would regail you of my top five gym accompanying toons (in no particular order) of the week.

On that sunny day when Virgin Festival rolled in to Calgary, Matthew Good lit up the stage in a way that not many people could. He was energetic, passionate and sang each and every song like he was living in the moment he had written it.

By now you’ve probably already heard that the Great Escape festival, scheduled for the October long weekend, has been cancelled. Organisers site unexpectedly low ticket sales as the reason and I must say it’s probably because the festival was organised for the same weekend of Parklife, a well-established event in the Sydney festival calendar. The last three years have seen the Great Escape held over the Easter long weekend, but inexplicably organisers decided this year to attempt to go head to head with the dance and hip hop behemoth.

The last three billings on the V Stage at Chelmsford were guaranteed to draw in the exhausted crowds and end the 2008 V Festival on a high.

Battle of the Girls bands —– The Girls V The Babes

Question: Who would win in a gangsta’ street fight between Girls Aloud or The Sugababes?

Noah And The Whale commanded a crowd of almost biblical proportions in the Union Tent. It seems when it comes to folk pop, revellers have quiet an appetite. As a frontman, Charlie Fink is polite, charming and definitely the kind of man who your mother would love.

If ever there was an event awash with ropey media perceptions, surely it’s the spiffy festival we call V. Last weekend played host to my first ever V, arriving to Chelmsford expecting to dodge cartoon-sized hampers, happy-go-lucky families, tee-total teenagers, and a sickly plethora of pop, all thanks to an indie rag’s festival guide. However, within minutes of kicking off a tent-pitching session I discovered the V crowd were a leery, cheery, beery bunch not a million miles away from some of my beloved festival crowds.

“Probably the most contrived way to organise a duty free booze run ever” ELEANOR CONWAY

Please enjoy the first video installment of VPass Ambassador Campaign: ‘Eleanor Conway needs to go global… V Festival Video’. Where topics such as what would you do if provoked by a rampant Wino in it’s natural habitat?

Forget the celebs, we meet Lord Chop A Lot, Barbara Streisand, The Elephant Head Of Doom and many, many more……