O2 Wireless Festival preview

• 30th Jun 2008

So Glastonbury is over. It wasn't a wash-out, Jay-Z won over his doubters and revellers everywhere are trying to remember in which mud pit they lost their wellies. Two hundred miles down the road at Hard Rock Calling, London, The Police hung up their guitars (again) in the UK and Eric Clapton wowed 35,000 people with an astonishing display of blues guitar, culminating in a stunning rendition of Crossroads (not the TV show) with Sheryl Crow and the brilliant John Mayer.

So what next? you might ask.

Well, don't even begin to think that the excitement of music festivals finishes there. Beginning on Thursday this week at London's Hyde Park is this years O2 Wireless Festival.

Jay-Z is back and headlining Thursday, ably supported by trans-atlantic super-producer Mark Ronson, Hot Chip and Roisin Murphy.

Friday 4th July sees Morrissey back at the top of the bill where he belongs, alongside Beck and Guillemots; Saturday sees the return of Fatboy Slim and Underworld; and the big finale on Sunday sees Counting Crows playing a rare UK headline slot to close the event.

The O2 Wireless Festival aims to be the greenest ever. With the majority of the audience heading to the site by public transport, the event in Hyde Park will be among the greenest events in the country this year. There will even be energy efficient lights throughout the site, light sensitive switches to ensure that lights aren’t left on unnecessarily and high efficiency generators used across Hyde Park.

Not only that, but if you run out of battery on your mobile (a key festival frustration), there will be pedal power bikes on offer to provide an alternative energy source to plugging in your charger. Each of the ten bikes situated at various points across the O2 Wireless Festival site has been specifically designed to generate enough energy to help to recharge a mobile phone handset.

For the full line-up, tickets and more information on the O2 Wireless Festival go here: link