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The Big Leeds Festival Post
LJ's already eaten this once, and just as I was about to finish it too (grrrrrrr)
When we left it was lovely and sunny, there was no traffic queues and everything was going swimmingly. Until we reached Manchester that is and the skies clouded over and it started to rain. And it rained all along the M62. And it rained some more. I'm sure the drive over the Pennines would have been very pretty, had it not been raining and obscuring our view.
It cleared a bit by the time we reached Leeds though and could just make out Elland road from the motorway (we gave it the finger - it's traditional). I think we outpaced the rain, which is good because there's nothing worse then putting up a tent in torrential rain.
We ended up parked miles away from the entrance sp we walked and walked some more. There were tents of all shapes, sizes and colours as far as the eye could see and it took us about 45 minutes to find a spot; at the bottom of a bank, by another entrance miles away from the car.
The tent was surprisingly easy to put up and we were all unpacked and ready to go inabout half an hour. (yay us!)
We were about a five minute walk from the loos and 15 minutes from the arena entrance.
The Arena is made up of a number of different areas:
[x] The Main Stage - handily located at the bottom of a gently sloping hill so you have a fairly decent view no matter how far back you are. Two large screens to either side of the stage and a third screen about halfway backin the middle for those of you not wanting to get squished in the mosh pit.
[x] The Carling Stage - a little diddy tent
[x] The Comedy tent - showed Manga in the morning, comedy during the day and films like Pirates of the Caribbean at night. Also home of Lemon Jelly Bingo which was a lot of fun.
[x] The NME/Radio One tent - the second stage, could probably hold about three or four thousand people. Could really do with being bigger
There were lots of shops in the middle of these (including a punkyfish stall where I spent a lot of money, jewellery stalls, oxygen bars, herbal highs and whatnot) and lots of food trailes with everything from Curry to bangers and mash with pancakes, noodles and everything inbetween. Mmmmmmmmm.
The less said about the toilets the better. Note Portaloo!TARDIS's are not bigger on the inside, far from it. Honestly, people were opening the doors of them by day 2 and retching from the smell. Yay to not having a sense of smell says I.
Photies!
Bands we also saw but didn't take photo's of because the stupid camera eats batteries like nobodies business.
Day 1 (Friday)
Lots of admiring glances at my "Trust me..." vest-top \o/ Is the new fesitival!look, bright wellies, micro skirts and not much else? Because that was very much in attendance. I haven't seen so much corned-beef!thighage since i lived in Bolton. Also hot men in kilts (which was good) wrinkly old men in kilts (not so good) and probably all the fedora hats available in this country.
My Chemical Romance - Technically we didn't see them as they started at 11.50 (because they were doing both sites on the same day) but we could hear them as we trudged down the hill and put up our tent. Shame really, they were very goiod and I really wanted to see them.
Alkaline Trio - Bouncing around with the emo!girls. They were a lot of fun and crammed a lot of songs into their little set
British Sea Power - Yay for the Sea Power! Hella fun and I recommend that you get hold of some of their stuff for it is good.
LCD Soundsystem - on late so they only did a 20 minute set which they apologised for (a lot). A surprise of the festival. They were quite good and I may go out and buy their album if I have enough money this month
The Futureheads - before the Futureheads came on the 5 thousand or so people crammed into the hot and sweaty tent were singing along to Magic Numbers, Kaiser Chief and Franz Ferdinand. it was very cool. For some reason I always thought they were from Scotland, but they're not, they're from Sunderland. They were also very good, with the crowd singing along to every single one of their songs.
Bloc Party - I have this irrational dislike of the Bloc, ever since they were mean to Simon from Popworld. It menat that I wasn't inclined to enjoy them but they were good, I'll have to give them that.
We also saw: Alkaline Trio, Funeral for a Friend, The Dead 60s
Day 2 (Saturday)
Having a bit of a piratey-theme (what with PotC being the film that night) using my scarf (which I'd need in the evening) as a piratey sash. Arrrr! Today's top was the Hobbit Fancier one. A girl even came over and asked where I got it from so I gave her my website address. I'll have to see if she buys one now.
The Wedding Present - Sadly, lots of people left after the GLC so missed out on this little gem.
Death from Above 1979 - Loud, rocky, don't really remember much else. I think we got food.
The Subways - very good
Elbow - oh Albow (as His Lordship and Young Jim pronounce it), how we adore you and your Northerness. Guy gently told off the crowd as they sung along to songs off the no-yet-released album (which is available illegally if you know where to look apparently). They did a top combo of Newborn (see this phonepost) followed by Fugitive Motel (my favourite Elbow song). Surprisingly they idn't finish with Cast of Thousands (last years Glasto highlight) but with their new single intead. They had lots of tickertape and smoke, it was classy and brassy
Fightstarr - ran over to the NME tent and caught the last song of their act. There were a lot of young girls present. Weird that. Charlie!Busted still has lovely lush eyebrows.
The Coral - nipped to the loos during the Coral and was serendaded by the bloke in the loo next to me, lustily singing along to the songs. A LOT of Scally!dancing was to be had.
Cooper Temple Clause - Good, the bit we caught didn't have any of the songs I knew in it though.
Queens of the Stone Age - More bouncing around in a rock stylee. Played stuff from their very first album was well as the newer stuff. Josh looked very dapper in a long grey geek!chic coat (which vanished after the first song as it was a bit warm like)
Charlotte Hatherley - (aka the Girl from Ash who His Lordship really fancies - so much so she's on his 'Five') I like her stuff, it's bouncy. Graham Coxton even joined her for a few of the songs. All good.
The Pixies - I don't know them very well, so I didn't recognise many of the songs, but did manage to do a phone post (here). The bloke from the Pixies looks a bit like Kyle from Tenacious D.
We also saw: Goldie Lookin' Chain, Maximo Park
Day 3 (Sunday)
Getting tired now. Still with the piratey themed sash. Avast! A sale in Punkyfish left me £30 lighter in pocket (but with lots of new tops) also bought a One Ring that fits on my tiny little thumb. We likes it my precious.
The Editors - I really want to go and see them in concert, but I've looked today an they'r sold out (boo)
Youth Group - very good.
Clor - Some nice cardigan work going on from the bass player. Classy.
The Go Team - very bouncy. Lots of members, surprisingly cheerful. The sound is quite old-skool but in a good way. I liked them.
We also saw: Biffy Clyro, Dinosaur Jr, The Kills, Hot Hot Heat, The Arcade Fire, Kings of Leon, The Foo Fighters
The Comedy Tent
Over the weekend we also dipped in and out of the Comedy Tent.
The two standouts from that were:
Reginald D Hunter - who did a great joke invovling pikeys. Apparently a Yates's Wine Lodge is Pikey!Central. Just so you know. And also went on about people cheering when someone mentioned their hometown and how it just makes you sound thick. (He wasn't quite as polite).
Steve Gribben - a Scouser with a guitar. Slagged off the Brummies a bit. Said the tornado that hit brum should have been called Hurricane Barry. Also said that people from Sutton Coldfield (which is where I'm from - me and his Lordship did that cheering thing you do when someone mentions your home town) are overly posh. (You've heard me, overly posh? I dunthinkdsolike.) He also did some songs.
My favourite was him singing Morrisey about Doctor Who. Sadly I can't remember much of it, but it was very funny.
He went on about Daleks destroying Birmingham (again with the brum!bashing) why don't aliens notice a 1950's police box in the middle of their front garden. Lamented Christopher Eccleston leaving, and made a sarky comment about the leather jacket and finished off by singing that if Billie needs inspiration for that look-of-horror she should just think about Chris Evans' ginger-pubed balls banging against her chin (which gave me a look of horror at the thought of it). (I shoulda phone posted it *sigh*)
***
But all too soon it was time to go and off we went. Unlike V it only took us about 20 minutes to drive off the site (at V you're sitting there for a good three hours - I could have walked home in that time) even with the fiendish car parking that blocked off lanes making negotiating the darkened fields a bit more annoying.
Then it was a long drive through the night with only local radio for company (as the batteries went on the MP3 player) and finally home for 1.55am.
Very tired. Going to go back to bed in a bit I think. Glad I'm doing 12pm-8pm at work this week.
When we left it was lovely and sunny, there was no traffic queues and everything was going swimmingly. Until we reached Manchester that is and the skies clouded over and it started to rain. And it rained all along the M62. And it rained some more. I'm sure the drive over the Pennines would have been very pretty, had it not been raining and obscuring our view.
It cleared a bit by the time we reached Leeds though and could just make out Elland road from the motorway (we gave it the finger - it's traditional). I think we outpaced the rain, which is good because there's nothing worse then putting up a tent in torrential rain.
We ended up parked miles away from the entrance sp we walked and walked some more. There were tents of all shapes, sizes and colours as far as the eye could see and it took us about 45 minutes to find a spot; at the bottom of a bank, by another entrance miles away from the car.
The tent was surprisingly easy to put up and we were all unpacked and ready to go inabout half an hour. (yay us!)
We were about a five minute walk from the loos and 15 minutes from the arena entrance.
The Arena is made up of a number of different areas:
[x] The Main Stage - handily located at the bottom of a gently sloping hill so you have a fairly decent view no matter how far back you are. Two large screens to either side of the stage and a third screen about halfway backin the middle for those of you not wanting to get squished in the mosh pit.
[x] The Carling Stage - a little diddy tent
[x] The Comedy tent - showed Manga in the morning, comedy during the day and films like Pirates of the Caribbean at night. Also home of Lemon Jelly Bingo which was a lot of fun.
[x] The NME/Radio One tent - the second stage, could probably hold about three or four thousand people. Could really do with being bigger
There were lots of shops in the middle of these (including a punkyfish stall where I spent a lot of money, jewellery stalls, oxygen bars, herbal highs and whatnot) and lots of food trailes with everything from Curry to bangers and mash with pancakes, noodles and everything inbetween. Mmmmmmmmm.
The less said about the toilets the better. Note Portaloo!TARDIS's are not bigger on the inside, far from it. Honestly, people were opening the doors of them by day 2 and retching from the smell. Yay to not having a sense of smell says I.
Photies!
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Day 1 - Funeral for a Friend Played quite a bit of stuff off Hours as well as stuff from the last album (which is the only one I know well) |
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Day 1 - The Dead 60s Yeah, I liked them, foot tappingly good. |
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Day 1 - Beer is Good! I don't even like beer. It makes me pull a 'gack' face. The cider His Lordship bought on Sunday was yummy though. The batteries went then so we didn't get any more pictures from Day one. or of the tent or the fact all the campsites were lit up with rows of coloured bulbs making it look not too disimilar to the set from Cats (Sorry, very un-rock reference there) |
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Day 2 - Goldie Lookin' Chain Guns don't kill people, Rappers do! Safe as Fuck Clart! Lots of Welsh flags in the audience (and as you can see blow-up sheeps as well), they came on stage with a shopmobility electric wheelchair and dedicated their Claims Direct song to Ricky from the Kaisers. |
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Day 2 - Goldie Lookin' Chain Played a couple of new songs, including my new favourite - "Adam's Charm School" which samples the theme from Grange Hill. It is most ace. |
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Day 2 - The NME Tent Typically, whilst we were stuck in a tent the sun came out. Lookit it shining through the roof, tempting us with its warm rays and golden light! |
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Day 2 - The Carling Tent Lots of little bands I hadn't heard of but were very good. Like these chaps. Clor were on after these and they were very good. |
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Day 2 - Maximo Park Very, very good. Enjoyed them a lot. |
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Day 2 - More Beer drinking to be done Yeah, the batteries ran out on the camera again so no pictures of the Pixies, Charlotte Hatherley (aka The Girl from Ash) or the other bands we saw. |
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Day 3 - Planning Our band visits are planned with military prescision. If there was a map beig enough he'd probably go and stand in it Joey-style. |
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Day 3 - Biffy Clyro The lead singer of Biffy wins the award for hairiest person in a band. he's got a beard Brian Blessed would be proud of. |
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Day 3 - Dinosaur Jr. |
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Day 3 - Dinosaur Jr. I've got a three hour drive ahead of me once Sunday's over, I'm going tocatch some sleep wherever I can. Plus I'd worn myself out shopping and is now the proud owner of a sterling silver One Ring that's small enough to fit on my thumb and three tops from the Punkyfish stall. (Look, they had a sale, it was rude not to go in and have a look, plus they do such lovely hooded tops, somehow I managed to buy a fleece-lined brown and blue zip-up jumper, plus a brown and blue hooded top with a zip that runs down the arm plus a vest top all for £30. Bargin!) |
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Day 3 - The Kills All their songs sound the same. The audience weren't really into them either. The girl kept doing the scary 'hair over face looking threatening' thing too. |
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Day 3 - Hot, Hot Heat (I think) The lead singer wins my award for best afro on a white boy. He looks like Sideshow Bob. Bounced around to Bandages and the other two songs I recognised. |
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Day 3 - The Arcade Fire Oh how I love you from the magical land of Canadia. Note the drum kit with crash helmets, there were bits of drumsticks flying everywhere. The girl standing next to me had a really old fashioned tape recorder and recorded the whole set. I bounced about like a loon, singing along at the top of my lungs and probably annoying everyone stood around me. |
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Day 3 - Kings of Leon Ooh spooky effect. They were good. We were miles back. |
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Day 3 - The Foo Fighters Again, I was bouncing around like a loon and they had [Dr Evil voice]Lay-sers[/Dr Evil voice]. Dave Grohl reckons the further north you go the more mad we are. He also wouldn't mind sharing a bath of beer with all us ladies. Pretty, pretty lasers. Played all the hits, so everyone was singing along. The atmosphere was really good. |
Bands we also saw but didn't take photo's of because the stupid camera eats batteries like nobodies business.
Day 1 (Friday)
Lots of admiring glances at my "Trust me..." vest-top \o/ Is the new fesitival!look, bright wellies, micro skirts and not much else? Because that was very much in attendance. I haven't seen so much corned-beef!thighage since i lived in Bolton. Also hot men in kilts (which was good) wrinkly old men in kilts (not so good) and probably all the fedora hats available in this country.
My Chemical Romance - Technically we didn't see them as they started at 11.50 (because they were doing both sites on the same day) but we could hear them as we trudged down the hill and put up our tent. Shame really, they were very goiod and I really wanted to see them.
Alkaline Trio - Bouncing around with the emo!girls. They were a lot of fun and crammed a lot of songs into their little set
British Sea Power - Yay for the Sea Power! Hella fun and I recommend that you get hold of some of their stuff for it is good.
LCD Soundsystem - on late so they only did a 20 minute set which they apologised for (a lot). A surprise of the festival. They were quite good and I may go out and buy their album if I have enough money this month
The Futureheads - before the Futureheads came on the 5 thousand or so people crammed into the hot and sweaty tent were singing along to Magic Numbers, Kaiser Chief and Franz Ferdinand. it was very cool. For some reason I always thought they were from Scotland, but they're not, they're from Sunderland. They were also very good, with the crowd singing along to every single one of their songs.
Bloc Party - I have this irrational dislike of the Bloc, ever since they were mean to Simon from Popworld. It menat that I wasn't inclined to enjoy them but they were good, I'll have to give them that.
We also saw: Alkaline Trio, Funeral for a Friend, The Dead 60s
Day 2 (Saturday)
Having a bit of a piratey-theme (what with PotC being the film that night) using my scarf (which I'd need in the evening) as a piratey sash. Arrrr! Today's top was the Hobbit Fancier one. A girl even came over and asked where I got it from so I gave her my website address. I'll have to see if she buys one now.
The Wedding Present - Sadly, lots of people left after the GLC so missed out on this little gem.
Death from Above 1979 - Loud, rocky, don't really remember much else. I think we got food.
The Subways - very good
Elbow - oh Albow (as His Lordship and Young Jim pronounce it), how we adore you and your Northerness. Guy gently told off the crowd as they sung along to songs off the no-yet-released album (which is available illegally if you know where to look apparently). They did a top combo of Newborn (see this phonepost) followed by Fugitive Motel (my favourite Elbow song). Surprisingly they idn't finish with Cast of Thousands (last years Glasto highlight) but with their new single intead. They had lots of tickertape and smoke, it was classy and brassy
Fightstarr - ran over to the NME tent and caught the last song of their act. There were a lot of young girls present. Weird that. Charlie!Busted still has lovely lush eyebrows.
The Coral - nipped to the loos during the Coral and was serendaded by the bloke in the loo next to me, lustily singing along to the songs. A LOT of Scally!dancing was to be had.
Cooper Temple Clause - Good, the bit we caught didn't have any of the songs I knew in it though.
Queens of the Stone Age - More bouncing around in a rock stylee. Played stuff from their very first album was well as the newer stuff. Josh looked very dapper in a long grey geek!chic coat (which vanished after the first song as it was a bit warm like)
Charlotte Hatherley - (aka the Girl from Ash who His Lordship really fancies - so much so she's on his 'Five') I like her stuff, it's bouncy. Graham Coxton even joined her for a few of the songs. All good.
The Pixies - I don't know them very well, so I didn't recognise many of the songs, but did manage to do a phone post (here). The bloke from the Pixies looks a bit like Kyle from Tenacious D.
We also saw: Goldie Lookin' Chain, Maximo Park
Day 3 (Sunday)
Getting tired now. Still with the piratey themed sash. Avast! A sale in Punkyfish left me £30 lighter in pocket (but with lots of new tops) also bought a One Ring that fits on my tiny little thumb. We likes it my precious.
The Editors - I really want to go and see them in concert, but I've looked today an they'r sold out (boo)
Youth Group - very good.
Clor - Some nice cardigan work going on from the bass player. Classy.
The Go Team - very bouncy. Lots of members, surprisingly cheerful. The sound is quite old-skool but in a good way. I liked them.
We also saw: Biffy Clyro, Dinosaur Jr, The Kills, Hot Hot Heat, The Arcade Fire, Kings of Leon, The Foo Fighters
The Comedy Tent
Over the weekend we also dipped in and out of the Comedy Tent.
The two standouts from that were:
Reginald D Hunter - who did a great joke invovling pikeys. Apparently a Yates's Wine Lodge is Pikey!Central. Just so you know. And also went on about people cheering when someone mentioned their hometown and how it just makes you sound thick. (He wasn't quite as polite).
Steve Gribben - a Scouser with a guitar. Slagged off the Brummies a bit. Said the tornado that hit brum should have been called Hurricane Barry. Also said that people from Sutton Coldfield (which is where I'm from - me and his Lordship did that cheering thing you do when someone mentions your home town) are overly posh. (You've heard me, overly posh? I dunthinkdsolike.) He also did some songs.
My favourite was him singing Morrisey about Doctor Who. Sadly I can't remember much of it, but it was very funny.
He went on about Daleks destroying Birmingham (again with the brum!bashing) why don't aliens notice a 1950's police box in the middle of their front garden. Lamented Christopher Eccleston leaving, and made a sarky comment about the leather jacket and finished off by singing that if Billie needs inspiration for that look-of-horror she should just think about Chris Evans' ginger-pubed balls banging against her chin (which gave me a look of horror at the thought of it). (I shoulda phone posted it *sigh*)
***
But all too soon it was time to go and off we went. Unlike V it only took us about 20 minutes to drive off the site (at V you're sitting there for a good three hours - I could have walked home in that time) even with the fiendish car parking that blocked off lanes making negotiating the darkened fields a bit more annoying.
Then it was a long drive through the night with only local radio for company (as the batteries went on the MP3 player) and finally home for 1.55am.
Very tired. Going to go back to bed in a bit I think. Glad I'm doing 12pm-8pm at work this week.
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I guess you'll have to torture me for information another day then ;-)
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I've actually seen Marcus Brigstock before - thought he was absolutely hilarious! Although not quite as funny as Bill Bailey.
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It's like being there, without having to sleep in a tent! :D
When I heard them saying on Radio One that The Wedding Present were going to be there I felt like it must be 1991 all over again! I take it they split up and reformed - or have they secretly carried on all these years? And I've still never heard a single one of their songs :D Read plenty of reviews in the NME over the years though, they're supposed to be good!
Mmmmm, the Foo Fighters..
Man, I don't recognise most of those bands though. Must be getting old, aargh!