| Leeds Festival 2008 - Part II
Saturday morning is best spent doing some light housekeeping and then admiring the glorious view from your patio. This is best aided by some good company and a large ice filled jug of some heavenly cocktail that tastes of exotic fruits, love and world peace. That's how Saturday began for us at Leeds.
Well, I may have exaggerated slightly. The light housekeeping consisted of trying to repair our tent, which - thanks to our wonderful neighbours - now had a snapped pole. The patio was a space in front of our tent which was just large enough to accommodate our chairs, and was still being used as a main pathway up and down the hill. The glorious view was replaced by a scene of sun drenched, muddy misery and the heavenly cocktail was replaced by a can of Strongbow that had been in the tent all night and was slightly warm. The pathways were too muddy for a leisurely saunter round the site so I opted to sit and watch the world pass by instead, It's funny to watch people walk about the campsite as lots of them are completely and utterly miserable. Spending the day in the arena only makes people smile because they're not in the camp site. Then you see them trudge back down the hill at the end of the night, visibly aging with every step. The people watching was ably soundtracked by the NMtwEenies next door, their comments on the world becoming increasingly poorly informed, made up or just plain wrong. Notes to self: 1. You're not ancient, even if you do own a Pa Dingle styled flat cap. 2. Try not to pitch near an unsupervised creche again.
Yet again we made it to the arena for 1:30pm, and this time it was for an hour of spoken word by Henry Rollins. This was the second time I'd seen Hank this year, so I wasn't sure how a 60 minute set would compare to his usual 3 hour shows. Fortunately it was just as great, and it was the busiest I saw that tent all weekend. His set did have several overlaps with the one I'd previously seen but, since the tales all involve his extensive travelling schedule, there were additions that made many of the tales even funnier. When he finished most of the crowd vacated rather quickly, mostly headed towards the Lock Up tent which is home to the festivals punk quota. While Rollins was on there were probably 3 teenage boys alone in the Lock Up tent, convinced they must be the most alternative people at the whole event. Imagine their dismay when a crowd of 3000 suddenly appeared, all raving about the fantastic hour they'd just spent listening to a punk legend. With better planning they could have put Rollins on the same day as Gallows, then he could have shown them how to sing Staring At The Rude Boys.
After Rollins we decided to watch the next comedian, Dan Atkinson, but he was rubbish. So, after a quick trip to the bar we went to the main stage to get a good view for Serj Tankian. Maybe it was too sunny, maybe the sound wasn't good enough, maybe it was too quiet. Something was wrong anyway, after Empty Walls and Lie Lie Lie I found my mind wandering - soon my body followed. After another beer trip it was time to watch Biffy Clyro destroy the main stage and make me finally realise why everyone loves them so much, neither of those things happened. Their early stuff is wannabe Nirvana, their recent stuff is wannabe Foo Fighters, none of their stuff is wannabe engaging. When they didn't start with Living Is a Problem Because Everything Dies I was quite happy, mainly because I wouldn't be subjected to the horribly wrong - sorry, horribly long - and boring intro that it has on the album. Lucky me, they'd saved it for later in the set and still gave it the full 5 hour intro. Watching them was very fun though, I got to play "find the tattoo that is actually good" and imagine that as soon as their set was finished the drummer would have to dash off to go and sign on. With my hatred and bile suitably topped up we returned to the Alternative Stage for more comedy, which was a good choice. Adam Hills was on stage and got someone who was dressed as Santa, and suitably 'chemically altered', to join him on stage. The whole thing ended with Adam Hills removing his prosthetic foot and having it crowd surfed around the tent while he balanced himself on a small inflatable beach ball and led everyone in a singalong of Footloose, then Santa crowd surfed as well.
It was time for some more music so we went to the Lock Up tent, 3 teenage boys sat outside crying "I thought we were so alternative, who's this Rollings guy?". Goldfinger were doing their usual upbeat performance, but we couldn't really see them as the tent was full to bursting. There are big screens at either side of the stage but every time I got a good view some 8' 4" guy would decide that the best view would be from directly in front of me. That was the main problem with the Lock Up all weekend, it was smaller than the Alternative Stage. The NME tent has more than doubled in size but the Lock Up has stayed the same and been moved to an area near some fairground rides. If you want good sound then you need to get inside, otherwise you'll also be hearing cheesy Eurodance and "Hold tight for the next ride". So we left, opting to avoid the end of the Fratellis set by going for dinner instead.
Back at the main stage we got a good position for Queens Of The Stone Age. Josh Homme is a dick, and not just because he is so pretentious as to pronounce his name differently depending upon where in the world he is. He informed us all that he'd been "drinking since 6am to get ready for this show", the cynic in me said "Of course you have Joshua, herbal tea". The main problem I have with their gigs is that I don't find them engagaing in any way at all, after a while it becomes a bit "yes, you're playing very well. Now please do at least one thing that's exciting". No wonder Nick Oliveri's old stripping off antics were a highlight of their shows, now there's only one cock visible on stage. There is also the incident from earlier in the year when he threatened a kid and had them thrown out of the festival they were at, after throwing a bottle at the kid from only a few feet away. The man is definitely one of the biggest twats in rock, only slightly beaten by Courtney Love. Boy, that was a cheap gag. QOTSA, officially less entertaining than Biffy Clyro - they even finished their set 7 minutes early.
Rage Against The Machine were next up, making it on stage 20 minutes late. I'd like to say that it helped build the anticipation, but it was 57 minutes since Joshua Whammy and his crowd had departed and most of us were very bored. They eventually came on stage and were great, firing through Testify, Bulls On Parade and People Of The Sun before the sound was cut near the end of Bombtrack. It turned out that people were getting crushed up at the front of the crowd, so Zac asked them all to take a few steps back so the gig could continue. After another 5 minutes they eventually restarted, right where they'd left off in the track. The rest of the set was great, except for one thing. They didn't really say anything to the crowd at all, between songs we'd get to watch the stage lights go out and listen to silence. It wasn't the 90 minutes of great tunes and political ranting that I'd expected, it was just 90 minutes of great tunes. Small complaint, i know, but out of all the bands that weekend I thought they'd have been the one who would use their time to send out a message as well as entertain. The lyrics are full of messages, but the music is so infectious that it's easy to listen to them in a field and not be bothered about the subject matter of the song. They did seem slightly out of their comfort zone as headliners, particularly when you consider that their most recent material is from an 8 year old album of cover versions. There was a certain "we've done all this before" about the set. Anyway, it was a good set and they played Freedom as the first encore. The only thing that was awful was the guy in charge of the screens. Sure, he has the power to press a button and switch to the feed from another camera. That's great, you get a good overview of what's happening. But who in their right mind showed him how to use the slow motion button? Far too often we'd be treated to a 10 second clip that was really 3 seconds of footage from the stage that we'd already seen. The band would be bouncing all over the stage but the people at the back would be watching Tim Commerford slowly playing a bass part from 30 seconds ago. It was like the opening sequence from The Six Million Dollar Man, if only the crowd had made the sound in unison.
With a rather nice, sunny, and relatively mud free day over we returned to our tent, visibly aging as we went. Our tent, despite not being the easiest place to get up the hill, was still being passed more often than that farm that sits in the middle of the M62 - small John Shuttleworth reference there. And the NMtwEenies were celebrating an 18th, oh the joy. They were also planning what to do the following night, this mainly consisted of setting fire to as much stuff as they could. Then they dismantled their gazebo and started playing Star Wars with the poles, before deciding it would be more fun to hit tents with them. They were starting to get more than slightly annoying. Leeds has an unfortunate policy, I couldn't take a katana with me. If I could then I'd have got a good sleep on the Saturday and then told security in the morning that "I think one of their pranks went wrong". As it was I only had a mallet, not considered a weapon in the world of camping even though it could suitably disperse a nose to the 4 corners of someone's face. As i tried to sleep I kept it nearby, then I had to pick it up when of the neighbours decided that they'd jump on our tent. Thanks to the already broken pole they did no further damage, but that wasn't of any worry to me. They could have landed on the tent 500 times if it was empty and I'd not have cared, landing on my girlfriend once was another matter. Tents are easy to find, I'm not likely to ever find another girlfriend if some stupid Ting Tings fan breaks the one I've got. So at 4:30am I was face to face with a throng of younger, fitter (in either way), drunk idiots telling them to "stay the fuck away from our tent". Magically it worked, they decided that backing down, agreeing and then making quiet snide comments was more their thing. Still, they were planning to set fire to as much stuff as they could on Sunday night. |
