Leeds - Day 1

I’ve never been at a festival where rain has made a difference to proceedings, which I guess is quite an achievement considering the British summer. I remember torrential rain during the sets of Muse and the Foo Fighters at Reading in 2002, but the ground was rock-hard and it soaked it up.
The weather has been Autumnal all week, occasional sunny intervals interspersed with malevolent looking black clouds wanting to shed their wares onto the flesh-heads beneath. It was raining on Friday morning and did on and off all the way to Leeds.
Still, the weather held up pretty well. We had a couple of half-arsed showers during the day, but it never lasted very long. It was Mork & Mindy though.
After the usual queues to get our wristbands and actually get into the arena, we made our way over to watch The Crimea. It was a bit odd that one of my personal highlights were on straight away and such an early time but The Crimea still managed to excite. Davey Crockett (not that one) is one of the oddest frontmen I’ve ever seen; talking to himself, twitching, throwing seemingly involuntary hand movements and having numerous full-on fits throughout the set. It makes for an interesting experience and I could see that people in the crowd who’d never heard the material before were at least impressed by the energy of the performance.
Cider. Bad food. Expensive food. Cider. Cider. Trip to comedy tent. See some fucking appalling comedy (bar some American fella who actually at least was on nodding terms with a joke).
It’s METAL! day on Friday at Leeds Festival so we didn’t go anywhere near the main stage all through the day. I tell a lie actually, whilst investigating the site later on we passed when Marilyn Manson was playing. He was probably using cuss words and wearing his mum’s makeup again. That boy…
So, as there was too much of the rock in the main arena, we hung out in the big tents all day. The tent was quite crowded for Sons & Daughters and The Duke Spirit, but I wonder if figures were boosted by the fact that if you weren’t a metaller then you really had no other place to go.
Both of those above bands were alright, some good songs but nothing to set my pants on fire. I have the Sons & Daughters album (again it’s alright) and am amazed at how Scottish they can sound. I expect bagpipes and a theme album about Culloden from them sometime into the future.
Maximo Park were good, and again attracted a big audience. They’re a good festival band, not too challenging but with tunes you can hum to whilst you tuck into a tasteless burger.
Highlight of day 1 arrived in the shape of British Sea Power. A relatively disappointing crowd greeted the band (allowing us to get a little too close to the front to those fucking big speakers) but it didn’t stop them producing a great set. Playing a smattering of their best songs from each of their two albums, they still managed to chuck in a ten minute feedback laden finale in which the guitarist attempted to demolish the entire stage (causing panic amongst the stage crew as he swung in the air from the lighting rig). Oh yeah, and there was an eight foot bear on the stage. He seemed to be wearing a tool belt and stalked the band members who had not tried to escape across the lighting rig, and ended up attacking the lead singer. There was a guy who leapt into the crowd with a drum as well.
After a great set, I found this ending all rather exciting and it sort of put everything in context for the rest of the day.
The day ended with a double header of The Futureheads and Bloc Party. The tent was packed to bursting point for both bands and it was hard to get a good view. Both were as tight as a midge’s minge and enjoyable enough.
The Futureheads are one of those bands who are enjoyable but I don’t understand how you could have them as one of your favourite bands. Some people seemed to be having orgasms at their short, fast-pop numbers but I don’t get how they can get that level of devotion. As I say, I enjoyed them but they’re a bit like As. Okay to listen to but never going to be a favourite.
Bloc Party are good live and a festival allows them to cut their weaker songs from the set. Again, some people seemed on the verge of whacking-off to the tunes.
My ears are ringing this morning. The BSP (wax on kids!) have increased the chance of my death from tinitus in later life (a bus will be involved).

(apologies for any spelling or grammatical mistakes as I’ve written this in about ten minutes).