Valetudinarian

I seem to be ill again. I have more than my fair share of sickness. My throat is sore, my bones ache and I'm listless.
It's undoubtedly nothing more than a cold, yet I don't understand why I get them all the time. I'm not skipping meals and living solely off crisps anymore (sadly), I can run 4km in around 18 minutes at the gym (though my times have lessened off lately as I haven't been going as much), and I'm getting more sleep than usual.
I must have a low constitution - one so low that I'm getting deductions on my hit points rolls.
All it takes is one weekend at a festival, or one trip out of the house wearing just a t-shirt and I have germs invading my oesophagus.
I'm the only man in the world capable of catching a cold just by looking at a picture of a polar bear.

Pieface Showcase

Last nights The Mighty Boosh was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen on a TV set.

Leeds - Day 3

My bones ache today. I feel like I've been tenderised by a hundred miniature hammers. My head is also complaining about the lack of sleep. If I was at home then it would feel like a warm hug tempting me into unconsciousness and I could snore and drool away the day on the sofa. Yet, because of the annoying bank holiday arrangements here, I am at work. Even though bank holidays are often tedious affairs, I feel like I'm missing some sort of fun. I can't handle the feeling that I'm missing something exciting. I hate being left out.
Yesterday was fun. It was sunny as well, though with wind which made me resemble Matthew Hoggard as the day wore on.
Day 3 of a festival is when unwashed punters start to smell of vinegar, and the sight of a festival toilet can bring about lengthy therapy sessions. I'm just glad I'm a boy as I can do a man-slash anywhere. It must be annoying for women having to brave the festival toilets to see chaps all too eager to prove they can urinate anywhere they like. Advertising hoardings? Piss on that. Side of a takeaway van? Piss on it. Tree? Take my piss you wooden whore!
Anyway, I didn't have any moonmince pies yesterday. I had curry, noodles and cider though. Hmm, maybe I'm slightly hungover today. I genuinely never considered that until now.
Again, there weren't many bands I wanted to see early on. We were sat around outside the tent where Nine Black Alps and The Cribs were playing. I think that 16 year old Glenn would have loved Nine Black Alps. It was the sort of thing he enjoyed.
I also tempted Paul onto a fairground ride, a 100 ft pole with a small carriage on either end that rotated at 70mph as your carriage span. It was quite fun but not worth the seven quid it cost to go on.
The first act that I had wanted to see was Roots Manuva. Even though it's not generally my choice of musical genre, I have enjoyed his album and thought his set yesterday was great. I suppose it helped to be sat in the sun drinking cider, but Rodney is just what was required on a Sunday afternoon. He charmed the crowd as well by thanking Yorkshire for its puddings. It's great to see a genuinely talented and innovative British rap act. The compere Colin Murray neatly summed everything up, by praising Roots Manuva, whilst also slagging off 50 Cent (who appeared here a couple of years ago with not overly favourable results).
We then sat in the sun to watch Dinosaur Jr. For a while I thought I was back in my sixth form common room again. The amount of arguments we had over whether Dinosaur Jr, Faith No More, The Pixies, some rave shite or Ned's Atomic Dustbin would play on the common room tape player. Eeeh…
Anyway, Mascis looks like Saruman from Lord Of The Rings! He always seemed rather worn but now he resembles an aged Ian Beckwith dressed as a wizard. It was nice that after all these years that my reaction to Dinosaur Jr hasn't changed much, some I like yet other stuff seems to pointlessly drag on for ever. Alright Old Father Time, stop this guitar solo now!
The Charlatans were on next, and whereas I'll always enjoy seeing them live, I wish Tim Burgess would smile a bit. Whenever I see him at festivals he's moaning about being on in the afternoon. He didn't even say bye when they left. That's just bad manners.
After a poo inducing half-hour where I frantically tried to follow the cricket on the WAP, we made our way over to see The Arcade Fire. I knew the tent would be ludicrously packed (and it was), but we found a pretty good spot just to the side of some guy over seven foot. Unsurprisingly nobody stood behind him.
Fuck me, what a performance. Anyone who has seen The Arcade Fire will know how exciting they are to see live. Repeatedly I could feel the hairs on my arms standing on end as the band charged through a rapid set, ignoring the calls from the organisers to get off stage as they knocked out Laika and Rebellion with barely a pause in-between. There's something you have to love about a band where the percussionist attacks one of his fellow band members with a cymbal in order to get his guitar off him. The frenzied crowd reaction was deserved.

I was quite giddy then and really up for the rest of the bands that we saw. Sleater Kinney were up next, and considering they seemed to be having a good time, it was surprising when they sloped off stage 10 minutes early. Especially as they stretched every song to about 8 minutes. Maybe they wanted to watch something on the tele. I've heard that they're big fans of Monarch Of The Glen..
The Raveonettes were good, and it was nice to see that they didn't make me ill. When I saw them supporting The Super Furry Animals a couple of years ago, the level of distortion and feedback coming off the speakers broke my internal organs.
I did nip out halfway through for a beer and wee-stop, and was pleasantly surprised to see that the tent for The Babyshambles was at best three-quarters full. That pleased me, as I really didn't want to see any more twats in trilbies during the weekend. Doherty has a lot to answer for, this is but another thing for which he will be put on trial for.
Oddly, I wanted to see all four stage headliners. Paul wandered off to see The Foo Fighters, Marie and Julia went to watch The Go Team, whilst I travelled back to 1993 to watch The Tears. I was also sorely tempted to travel a couple of years further back and watch Bad Religion.
But, The Tears it was, and my joy at seeing that Babyshambles had attracted far less than expected turned sour. The tent for The Tears was less than a quarter full, and even though I really enjoyed the performance it was a shame that nobody really turned up. I guess everybody had gone to see one of the others, yet it was a shame that there aren't more people in their twenties or early thirties who get excited at the thought of seeing Anderson & Butler back on stage together.
Somebody did shout 'Can you play the Drowners please?' which I thought was a rather polite way to ask.

Leeds - Day 2

Even though the band I want to see the most are playing today, as well as the ‘Fucking Pixies’, I think Saturday may actually be the worst day, especially when looked at in depth rather than highlights. There is certainly very little I’ve been looking forward to in the afternoon anyway.
When we saw Cinerama in London a few years ago I thought it was cool that the audience was largely made up by excitable thirty-something bald men who loved the wedding present, a crowd made up of numerous examples of my mate Nige.
There were a lot at the main stage yesterday to watch the re-formed Wedding Present play an early afternoon set of their ‘fast indie’ as Nige calls it. I surprised myself with how much of the material I was familiar with; I thought I only knew about a dozen WP (no sorry) songs. Nice way to start the day.
I really wanted to like Graham Coxon, after all he was the coolest one in one of my favourite bands of the nineties. Some of his songs are okay, but it’s delivered with such an obvious air of intentional ineptitude that it’s hard to warm to him. That he spent the time in between songs talking in some sort of wet baby-voice started to put me off my moonmince and onion pie. Hmm, moonmince. Put yourself together Graham.
Marie’s sister Denise has heard of band called Mando Diao, that she stated to Marie that I would love. We were both curious about this band that were apparently made for me but not for Marie, so wandered across to the diddy tent to check them out. We thought it would be empty, yet it was packed for some band called The Paddingtons. Listening to them from outside the tent I deduced that they were fucking shit. Why the place was rammed with Doherty wannabes when it was barely half full for The National later on annoyed me somewhat. If somebody tells you to listen to The Paddingtons, please reply ‘Don’t talk to me, they’re fucking shit. You twat.’ That is the only suitable response.
Whilst I’m using unnecessary swear words, we wandered past the tent were Fightstar were due to come on. I thought I’d check it out as I heard they’d been bottled at Reading the day before. And they were again.
Okay, it’s not my bag, but why the fuck would you go out of your way to see a band that you hated so much that you’d chuck bottles at them? Stroppy fucking teenagers piss me off sometimes. I used to be a stroppy teenager and I was a conceited, idiotic little prick. I grew out of it as I approached adulthood (heh, maybe not), and I hope these people do the same. I’d never have chucked a bottle at someone though, and I don’t see the fucking logic in it. I went round scowling at emo foetuses for the rest of the day.
Anyway, Mando Diao were quite fun. They were a Swedish five piece, most of whom looked to be under the drinking age, and one who looked like Bryan Adams. They played (very) up-tempo guitar rock, with lots of choruses and a frankly impressive amount of energy. I can’t say it was 100% my bag, but the sheer energy and effort dragged me along and I found myself really enjoying them.
The National were on next and I became alarmed that there weren’t many people in the tent. It filled up a bit during the performance but these guys should have been on the main stage.
This is the band that I wanted to see most of all and I was in danger of over-hyping the whole thing in my head. It took about a second though to realise that what I was going to see one of the best live music experiences of my life. I don’t understand how I can be considering using the adjective moving for a band playing in a tent. But it was. It was so beautiful, touching, exciting yet moving that I wondered if I was going to embarrass myself in a tent full of strangers. Still, some people were also getting frightfully into it so I wouldn’t have been alone.
They only played for forty minutes, but that was enough to confirm that this was a new band like I haven’t had in my life for the last few years. Matt Berninger could quite be the coolest frontman I’ve seen. He spends most of the songs huddled next to the mic, arms pushed round himself for protection, staring into the middle distance as he chain-smoked his way through the set. Then every now and then he’ll seem to have a fit, screaming and jerking around the stage, something that got even the casual observers to my left looking at each other in a ‘what the fuck?’ way. Then he’ll stop, look like he’s just taken something out of himself and go back to hanging from the mic with another fag.
So much of music is overblown and obvious, here was something understated that was worth a thousand times as much.
We checked out The Killers next. They’re okay and I quite liked their album at first (even though I haven’t listened to it in a year), but I feel that I would have gone to see another band if there was one I really wanted to see.
I certainly don’t like The Killers enough to be squashed in close vicinity to smelly festival goers who scream tunelessly along to every word.
After a stop for more moonmince (hmm, moonmince) we settled down (though remained stood) for The Pixies. The Pixies surprised the hell out of me last year, but this year I was prepared for the fact that they’d be fantastic. And they were.
They played for hours, included all your favourites and were great. You would have loved them. Go and see them if you get the chance before they get expand so much that they can’t fit on the stage anymore. Or they start fighting again.