Roll on, summer

You know summer's under way when the festival season kicks off and We Love... Homelands traditionally marks the start of three months of frolicking in fields (and hopefully basking in glorious sunshine).

Homelands is the UK's leading festival for club kidz and, with a line-up stretching across every conceivable genre of dance music, it's easy to see why. This year's live stage leads the way with the much-anticipated return of ultimate festival carousers Faithless, Dizzee Rascal bringing grime to Winchester, and NY retro-futurists Scissor Sisters. Elsewhere, London Elektricity perform live and there's a hip hop arena with the inspirational Jazzy Jeff and Grandmaster Flash. Last year's show-stoppers 2manydjs also appear, as do the ever-popular Erol Alkan and Mr Scruff. If it rains heavily, this could turn into a kneedeep sludge-fest, but Homelands is renowned for its diehard ravers who just go for it, whatever the elements.

In just 12 months, The Key has become a venue dearly beloved of those who have made the effort to head to King's Cross. Whether this is down to its intimate size (300 capacity), evoking mid-1990s underground clubbing, its fun, discolit dance floor or the range of nights (including Chew The Fat's meaty breaks, Cross Town Rebels' electrorock'n'roll and Indelible's party hip hop), The Key is universally lauded. It's also been a catalyst, creating a trio of quality clubs (with Canvas and The Cross) and an area that is positively buzzing of a weekend. On Friday, The Key celebrates its first birthday with Human Zoo, featuring Paris's Ivan Smagghe, playing three hours of dark electro-disco, and residents Neil Thornton and Andy Taylor.

Hoxtonpimps' bank holiday events are rapidly becoming a welcome alternative to the usual club action. The Shoreditch/Old Street/Hoxton axis is hardly news, but it remains London's leading creative quarter, housing some fine record labels (Output, Haywire) and futurethinking festivals (onedotzero and hung, drawn & quartered). This weekend's three-night extravaganza (all for £5) includes Output's head honcho, Trevor Jackson, with a twisted electronic set, Fat Truckers doing retro-techno/electro, Grand Central Records' wunderkind, Riton, and funked-up techno duo Slam (Soma). In reality, these guys are the hook to reel you into a platform for the next generation of DJs, bands and multimedia artists, and a return to Hoxton's beatnik roots.

Bank holidays are an excuse for a big night out. So, if you're going for it, you might as well do it in style at an infrequent OTT night such as Pushca, which has been doing bling since before the word entered our vocabulary. Shipwrecks are the theme at the first Pushca of 2004 and, in typical lavish style, it's only accessible by boat. Once you arrive at the under-wraps location, you enter a dimension of fabulousness, in the form of a palm-fronded beach, bedouin tent, performing freaks and champagne-serviced Jacuzzis. Funky and soulful house comes courtesy of cheeky bootleg duo Hoxton Whores and Shapeshifters. Dress code is naughty and nautical (sailors, pirates and mermaids), and there's an after party, followed by an all-day carryon at Clapham's White House.