Glastonbury kicks off live music season with V Festival to come

Beacon's James Carpenter's weekly blog covers the 'Walk of the Black Country', having fun at Glastonbury and meeting Scouting For Girls.

The words 'Thank You' are the first that spring to my mind when I contemplate this week's blog. I'm still amazed by the amount of money raised at last Sunday's 'Walk of the Black Country - over £100,000!

The Promise Dreams team were so made up that there wasn't a dry eye come Monday morning when we all got together to watch a video of the day. It just goes to show what people can achieve if they put all their positive energy together.

So, a big thank you if you're reading this and you took part. Watch the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJOfPvNg4es

It's all about live music now with all of the festivals coming up and plenty of new music coming out too.

Wolverhampton's very own Beverley Knight releases her new album next month and you'll be able to see her at the Civic Hall in November. To promote this, she has agreed to come on my show this Monday night at 6:30pm.

I've also been reading today's papers about the mud at Glastonbury - which is to be expected really. When you buy a ticket to go there, I'm pretty sure that some of the fee goes on making sure you have a muddy experience!

I'm joking of course, but it reminded me of my visits to the swimming pools that had wave machines and the experience went hand-in-hand. Glastonbury without the mud is like the pool with no wave machine. The fun just wouldn't be quite the same.

Now the link between Glasto and the big music event in our area, V Festival, is Scouting For Girls. They've played Glastonbury numerous times, including once when Roy the lead singer had to carry his own keyboard through and his fellow band members couldn't even get a ticket so he had to play on his own…seriously.

They're playing V-Fest at Weston Park later this year and the guys dropped in on my show the other day to talk about it and their new single:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0AaTeS9rZs

Work hard, play hard is so true.

Making the things you want happen in life is important, but you should never forget to take some time out to keep the child in you alive, which is why the drivetime team, Statto Steve, Travel Tom, Nice Nick and I, went out for some dinner this week.

We've vowed to try and do this once a week, which sounds mad doesn't it - surely it should be more, so the next stop might be the 'Fox At Shipley'. Firstly, it's set in a nice area, secondly they do loads for charity and thirdly, they're all-round nice guys.

After that, any suggestions of places to try are welcome - that's if they'll accept us!

James x