Dream Summer Blog 2006 - Leeds Festival

So we stop in the worst organised parking we have seen this year, and trudge miles through the main site, where equally under-knowledgeable staff misdirect us many times. Finally we arrive with a minute to spare before the box-office closed, to snap on our wristbands and join ranks with the rest of the campers in the guest area! The guest area is quiet, behind a row of trees and has almost decent toilets! Hooray!

Day 1 ? Friday

We wake up later than usual for a festival morning, there?s no stereos blaring cheesy eighties pop and the scent of bacon is wafting through the vents in our tent! The day begins with a stroll through the woods to the guest area, which has a bar & restaurant, press tent and rows upon rows of picnic benches, from which you can see the main stage! Genius! We are hardly through the trees and who do we spot? Darren Jeffries (OB) again. He appears to be doing the circuit like us ? but who wouldn?t with free tickets? Anyway, enough of the minor celebrity spotting, and on to the bands! So we start the day hearing Mastodon and Killswitch Engage followed by Taking Back Sunday from the VIP area, none really tickle our fancy, but never fear, Less Than Jake appear, their all-American ska-pop sensation, wowing the crowd with absolute classics; Not to mention a chicken-fight (girls on guys shoulders) and a lot of skanking!

We deftly avoid Bullet For My Valentine by seeking out the comedy tent and some food. Slayer are our next point of call ? playing to a less than metal crowd, but managing a deadly moshpit all the same. South of Heaven ringing out across a field of sweaty bearded men ? is there anything better? Once again, we carefully miss the entourage of the skinny-jeaned, mascara-clad My Chemical Romance, in favour of beer and er? other music. Ok so they?re not my cup of tea. However, as the dusk begins to settle (pun intended) Placebo hit the stage running. They are everything I?d hoped and more, with a killer set list, which included the near-legendary ?Nancy Boy?. For desert, we had an extremely large and very satisfying helping of Pearl Jam, who played an absolute gem of a set ? even better than they?ve ever sounded on CD. With model hits such as ?Even Flow?, ?Do The Evolution? and ?Given To Fly?, they gave us nearly everything we wanted. You?ve never experienced rock and roll if you haven?t heard thousands of people singing their hearts out to ?Alive? in a field. The only dead miss, was the exclusion of ?Jeremy? but, it didn?t really fit the set, so I?ll forgive it. Frontman Eddie Vedder is a God in a man?s clothing. The rest of our night is spent trying to release the ?awe? from our facial muscles/drinking cider in the guest area.

Day 2 ? Saturday

Ok, so today, having woken to the awful croonings of Fightstar we stomp through the woods to catch a little Dashboard Confessional and then Panic! At The Disco with frontman Brendon Urie?s strange pitch-shaking vocals practically deafening all who dared to turn straight at them. The Subways? solid hit ?Rock & Roll Queen? brings the waiting fans to a frenzy (and yes, even I jig around a bit!). Fall Out Boy and Belle & Sebastian, are frankly less than impressive, despite having heard almost constantly for the last few months that they both ?rock?. So we head pootle around the stalls while they?re on, and buy some more unnecessary festival jewellery and some knitted finger puppets, for no reason at all. We return to the tents for cider and to use the facilities (thank god for VIP), and apparently walk onto a Hollyoaks set. There are cast members en masse; Kevin Sacre (aka Jake Dean), Matt Littler (aka Max Cunningham), Hollie-Jay Bowes (aka Michaela McQueen) and Andrew Moss (aka Rhys Ashworth) are all there, in their fashionable wellies, drinking carling like everyone else. Being an avid student soap watcher ? its more than surreal. Also managed to squeeze in some comedy tent viewing today, in the forms of Matt Blaize and Cole Parker, very funny.

The veritable saviours of the day are the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, exploding onto the main stage with the vim and vigour of psychedelic kittens on speed, which incidentally is what enigmatic vocalist Karen O looked a bit like, in her spangly Pharaoh ensemble. The catch of it all, was definitely when she tried to headbang, and then pull the tiara from her hair. It was stuck enough to last half the song and reduce her to fits of giggles. Fantastic! ?Gold Lion? went down a storm, and having never really paid attention to them before, I definitely will now! I even wanted to buy a tshirt ? but alas, they were sold out! I consoled myself with a plate of cheesy fries. The next band on; The Kaiser Chiefs, heralding from Leeds themselves, apparently played very well (according to our sources) but I can?t really comment as I am most definitely not a fan. We went back to the tent about 5 minutes in, and donned wellies and hoodies in time for Franz Ferdinand who surprised me by being very entertaining, though I do believe they should rethink the guitars-above-the-belt thing, it?s a look best reserved for duelling banjos and The Beatles.

Day 3 - Sunday

Awoke with the express intention of seeing two bouts of Flogging Molly today, hoping for a festival first! We?ve seen them a few times before, and they truly give a top-notch show. We popped out through the hole in the fence, okay okay, VIP entrance, to the main stage and settled ourselves in for Flogging Molly, who were as usual, astoundingly fun in a drunk-Irish sort of way. We hopped about, jigged and even tried a bit of Riverdance as well! They promise to see us later on the Lockup stage, and we promise them right back!
Flogging Molly are followed by a very silly incident. Did a bit of a bonehead thing today. Whilst sitting down at a nice picnic bench in the VIP area and drinking a cold cider, some fashionable sorts asked us if they could join us to watch Wolfmother. Of course we said welcome, and they began to take all manner of cameras and stuff out of their bags. Having introduced themselves by name and we had got talking, I said ?So what are you here for? Press??, only to be brutally rebuffed with the words ?We?re in a band?. Bugger. They were in fact, all of The Morning After Girls who had just finished a set in the Carling tent. They?re an extremely friendly bunch and we drank beer and watched The Cribs with them, gasbagging about what celebs were backstage and whether the beer was free or not. After that, it was time to get ourselves over to The Automatic, but we do catch most of The Futureheads on the way over. What is it with the THE bands today? The Automatic played ?Monster? a few songs in, which was a bad idea as far as I?m concerned because that?s all I knew! However it was good, and my sister did appreciate being phoned to hear it.

We head back over to Feeder, who play a lot of their classic songs, the kind even I know the words to! Then back yet again, to the tents for yet another dose of Flogging Molly, where they sprang the incredible ?Salty Dog? on us ? a previously unheard treat for us, over the 4 times we?ve seen them! Only a few people appeared to know the words, and they were standing next to us holding an Irish flag. It was great! We found a big enough gap afterwards, to pop over to see a bit of Jet, then back for Millencolin and Antiflag, who were both true to form, bouncy and political. We left Antiflag in the torrential rain, to get good places for Muse, who we are very excited about seeing. Muse play a kick-ass set with pretty much everything I wanted to hear; ?Citizen Erased?, ?Feeling Good?, ?Plug In Baby?, ?New Born? and the inevitable crowd-pleaser ?Time is Running Out?. Apart from the strange instrumentals and the sort of non-recognition of the crowd, they were fantastic. We get out early by strolling through the guest area whilst everyone else is still drinking, and hop in the car (now in the guest parking, we sneakily packed our tent up earlier). It is the easiest thing in the world to get out and we?re home in 2 hours!

Its been a great weekend, but I?m not sure I could hack camping in the main arena?VIP has tainted us, definitely. Leeds festival ? you rock!