tomthevet - a prognathic mitten man: festivals

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Muse Live

Saw Muse live at the Leeds Festival last Sunday, and was suitable impressed. All through the day there had been some weird spirally plastic things, like giant tumble-drier outlet pipes behind the curtain at the back of the stage. "Bet they're for Muse," Alex said - and sure enough, they were, along with ten amazing colour screen things - 5 of which levitated (on strings - even Muse can't defy gravity). Their new album sounds incredible live - they closed on "Take a Bow", which, despite seeming simply written, is always going to be a crowd* pleaser. Especially when they end with a huge spark of flames!

Also saw the Futureheads, who were a bit rubbish really. When you can stop looking forward to the crowd-splitting "uh-oh-oh", song, cos you've already heard 6 exactly the same, they have no interest for me. Dirty pretty things were alright, Feeder were, well, Feeder - you know what they're like. I have a t-shirt, but I must admit that I find them a little boring - and the lead singer's close resemblance to Adam-the-Mathmo does nothing for me.

*thanks to Dad for spotting the spelling mistake. Sure it was a cloud pleaser too.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Leeds Festival

Leeds Festival

Leeds festival was amazing - my first festival, and well worth the £136 odd we paid for it. We (Alex and I - oooh correct grammar) saw about 24 bands (I think) including the wonderful Cooper Temple Clause, The Coral, Elbow, The Killers (who were distinctly average), The Foo Fighters, Babyshambles, Razorlight, Clor (who amazed me both in being great and in having a guitarist who looks just like Ben...), Maximo Park, Sons and Daughters, Yeti, Forward Russia (with the best ginger, plump, glasses wearing, bearded guitarist I have ever seen - everything a guitarist shouldn't be, yet amazing!), Bloc Party, LCD Soundsystem, The Futureheads (bore) and Kasabian.

We arrived on Friday morning (probably around about 8am, we had to get up at 5.30!) and hunted for a tent pitching spot, eventually finding one next to three tents with "peace and love" stickers on their outsides - clearly we had friendly non-rioting neighbours! So, we pitched up and then made our way through queues and queues of people to get our wrist bands (which has since fallen off my arm - grr, they are supposed to be invinsible) and to get into the main arena bit. I was amazed at the sheer volume of tents there, it took about half and hour to walk from our tent to the arena, through a sea of tents.

We did stuff other than listen to music of course, including a Ferris wheel trip, the eating of lots of lovely festival food (including tent-cooked super noodles; so good!). Alex also got a henna tattoo, a picture of which is below - fortunately it had just dried by the time we went to see The Coral as the henna got minced by the bouncing crowd! I could have said 'mosh' but I don't think a Coral crowd can be described as a mosh - it was all too friendly.

It was always interesting being woken up in the middle of the night by random drunk people stumbling over your tent's guy ropes and other people loudly asking their friends questions; questions including the classic: "have you got any cashew nuts?"

Generally the weekend was amazing, see the photos below!

Our tent, pitched up and safe from arsonists.

Forward Russia's guitarist :)

The arena, including shark-shaped Lee Sounds Unsigned Tent and someone in the foreground who I assure you is not Mary.

The Elbow photos came out best because it was daytime. They were also amazing!

A good shot of the main stage and screen

They sprayed us with little bits of paper with the title of their new album on. Best marketing plan EVER. I'm buying it! It was like it was snowing!

Alex displays henna tattoo.

The Cooper Temple Clause how I love you.

The Killers... pretty lights!

Look! Up high! Goodbye vertigo, we went on the ferris wheel... the rickety old ferris wheel... that wobbled... and unscrewed itself... and clanked and clunked...