V FESTIVAL PHOTOS HERE

I love the way music festivals start so strongly in terms of the organisation and application - weather is fine, all the stewards on point, people moving freely, walkways still usable, toilets still working, bins are empty, food and drink still in stock, everyone still has cigarettes and mobiles have both reception and battery life - plus no one has managed to either lose their way or their mind yet.

Then over the next few days, you see it slowly start to unravel, until in the end: chaos reigns - the skies open and everything underfoot is untrustworthy, stewards are not at their posts and if they are, they’re so stoned they are of more of a hindrance than a help (grey campsite? That is… erm maybe over there. no wait..it’s. wait I don’t even think there is one.), pathways descend into rivers of mud, toilets brim with concentrated evil and paper is a fabled legend hunted for in vain by many. The floor becomes a universal dustbin and the food stalls sell three day old half cooked burgers while cider is all that remains at the bar.Fevered brains listen for the clicking of lighters and the spark at the end of joints & cigarettes as they search for any soul willing to part with one of their precious sticks of burning comfort, far too many drugged up moonbats decorating the area - zombified festival goers flying on too much of whatever stagger around aimlessly searching for friends, tents or their minds as everything spins in circles around them - sleep, food and money all scarce commodities after 3 days festival camping.

Mobiles show that last dot of battery as text messages arranging to meet at certain times and certain places arrive two hours too late - no one can remember where they parked the car or where they pitched the tent.

And then all of a sudden - it is time to go home.

None of that matters however - sure, you are cold, wet, uncomfortable, hungry and tired after three days basically sleeping rough in a field inside a plastic bag on sticks - but that’s all superfluous to the reason behind why you are actually there - the music and the memories you carry from the event.

V festival takes place each year and generally attracts about 150’000-200’000 people to each site - they have two sites with the line up swapping over each day - each site has two main stages, two main tents and then a few smaller bar type venues dotted around the place - one thing they do very well is organise things as much as possible so that it runs as smooth as can be expected - big bands don’t clash too much - no over ticketing or freeloaders - no over sensitive security if you are smoking a bit of mari-jo, but safe enough to know that you won’t end up the wrong side of robbers and drunks - getting in and out is not too much of a nightmare.
Lily Allen served up suitably bouncy Ska Reggae tinged tunes to get things started - did herself proud - Bic Runga a New Zealand songstress who is big in that part of the world did an intimate set up next - beautiful voice, but probably better suited to a club kind of atmosphere with the-one-woman-with-a-guitar-slow-number approach - the rain was falling by this point and grey skies looked likely to start making life around the site a lot more difficult - in such situations putting up with half assed bland bubblegum rock wannabes is hard to take - especially when they are as passionless as the Feeling or as poor live as Hard-Fi - who Damo was particulary angry at for trying to cover the White Stripes - then again in comparison against the performances that were to come, seeing these bands made me appreciate how truly califragafuckinglistic the later shows actually were.

For an hour or so Paul Wellar showed such performers how to do it - the crowds always love Paul Weller because he’s got songs we all know and love and he sings them like it’s the first time they’ve ever been sung - I think there was around 50 or 60 thousand people jumping around and singing A town called Alice right back at him - how good must that feel?

Then the rain stopped.

The evening came around 8.30pm

Around 100’000 people gathered at the main stage

Faithless.

Opened with Insomnia.

I’ve never been a part of anything quite like it.
Faithless do indeed get away with playing the same set year in year out - Insomnia, Salva Mea, & One mixed in around some of the lesser known numbers and attempts to replicate their main three tracks - but it has to be said that they really do kick fuck out of an evening when they are live - truly outstanding.

After Faithless, Groove Armada in one of the tents was tempting, however, the evening really jumped up a notch further as we headed to the next stage for Razorlight - one of my flat out love and listen to all the time bands live, they were legendary - they have so many tracks that are suited to the big crowd and they know how to perform for the lights - who ever stuck around for Morrissey on the main stage must of felt robbed when people told of what they saw when Razorlight played that night.

We sat up till the dawn threatened as we had done the night before - we would sleep when the weekend went the way of the dodo.

Sunday rolled around and the sun made an appearance with it - we gathered troops and got ourselves breakfast in the form of cans of Calrsberg and stale cheese sandwiches - we headed down the arena and milled around a while - Mikey was enthusing about the the Dub Pistols and we decided to check them out en masse - UK Hip Hop all about MC’s, rappers, mixing desks and samples - shockingly good - a live performance in a small arena (more or less a bar) and they tore the place apart - the collection of beats and the variety of samples was astounding - the energy of the performance on display was unmatched over the whole weekend - they were leaping into the crowd jumping off the trun tables and generally just going fucking mental - I’d never heard of them before but I’ll never forget them now.

The day was flying by and before we knew it mid-afternoon brought us the Magic Numbers and all their California-60’s-mama’s-and-the-papa’s-style-hippy-hoedown tomfoolery - I’d heard good things about this surprisingly UK bred ray of sunshine and heard even more in the form of their music once they took the stage - two sets of cuddly brothers and sisters - all good sentiments, big hair, beards and smiles - the women might look a little like Shrek princesses but you still just want to get up there and bear hug every member of the band.

Bloc Party were up next - another of my die cast love and listen at any time bands - we got front and centre as much as possible as they banged out a blistering set playing the big numbers from silent alarm as well as some high quality sounding new tracks - another big performance that would of gone down even better later in the evening - fantastic to see them though - one of the reasons I got on the plane.

Kindergarten Coldplay Keane followed with the big Moonface wailing over his piano singing songs that are nothing out of the ordinary and linger in the memory for all of about two or three seconds - it was really surprising how many people stuck around for it and they had one of the bigger crowds of the day - we couldn’t be dealing with the blandness of it all and everyone agreed a move was in order.
The day fractured at this point as everyone had their own ideas of what should be up next and later on mobiles and meeting places just never really got the job done this late into the festival - however, all weekend we had been randomly bumping into folk we had no idea where actually there - I love that - amongst 150’000 other people just happen across someone you’ve not seen in a while - one such friend of mine appeared out of nowhere as I was wandering over to see We are the Scientists.


While the band failed to grab me the conversation about Panda’s unwillingness to pro-create “you know what, fuck the panda” did.


leading into the logistics of Noah’s Ark: Getting Pandas to fuck each other is hard enough when we have around 2000 of the miserable furry bastards - now God wants to eliminate all of them and leave the world with two and hope they get along?


and on to how pandas are just focused on the celebrity: they’ve figured out that there aren’t that many of them left and they all are trying to outlast each other so they can be the last panda on earth - book deals, movie of the week, pencil cases, cuddly toys, round the clock TV coverage and major network news appearances - if they start getting jiggy with another panda and make a baby panda to outlast them then their eternal place in the Guinness book of records is no longer attainable .


We laughed with the crowd as loud cheers went up upon hearing the news that one of the Ordinary Boys had been taken ill and they would not be appearing - a sort of Madness tribute band that has managed to get a bit of press off the back of one of ther members appearing in celebrity big brother - some DJ’s took their place and we wandered back to the main stage where Beck was busy confusing the fuck out about 40’000 people - we fractured again and I met up with Lockey and Sophie and decided to get as far away from Beck as possible and over to see the Editors on the other main stage.

Interpol-lite they may be, they do have one or two damn fine numbers up their sleeve like Munich and Blood – we grabbed some Mexican munch and watched from afar - a fair set was played out but I think everyone was looking forwards to the last bands of the festival at this point. Kasabian was following the Editors and while I don’t mind a few of their tracks like the Stone Roses wannabe Clubfoot, I still don’t really rate them and get a manufactured rock band vibe about all they do - harsh that may be as many that saw them that night said they did a flat-out fantastic fucking job of entertaining people.

Lockey and Sophie had their hearts set on Fat Boy Slim - I can take or leave him - never really liked his tracks or albums but appreciate him mixing live - still that kind of thing wasn’t really what I came for - and besides, after two days on my feet with not much in the way of sleep or food I wasn’t really set up for bouncing round a tent - I needed something I could get zoned out and transfixed by.

I’d taken a while to come round and appreciate them - in the past I’d always dismissed it as music to slit your wrists to and thought Thom Yorkes voice to be akin to a strangled cat - Barnes burned all the albums for me and gradually I-pod infiltrated them into my psyche via random playlists - eventually I came around and understood that if you love music then you will probably end up loving Radiohead- crashing guitars, haunting lyric’s, modern day lullaby’s for the skeletons in everyones closet.

No better way to finish a festival - to see them live is really quite something - I stood fixed to the spot, eyes forward, eyes wide - just taking it all in - they played for around 2 hours to send the festival off - they had done the same the night before at the Chelmsford gig as well apparently - I don’t know if they got the same appreciation there as they did here - but more than likely - I think there was 2/3 of all the festival at the main stage - the crowd went all the way back to the gates as far as I could see - as I looked around there seemed to be many like myself, hypnotized and alone - it seemed that as the festival drew to a close everyone had just stopped worrying about sticking together, meeting up, finding the group and just decided that this would be for themselves and them alone - no distractions - just getting drawn in and tranced out by one of the greatest live bands on the planet.

After the encore - to my and everyone else’s surprise - we all heard the chords and there was a pause as we realised what was about to be played - Creep - a song they reputedly hardly ever play live and profess to hate - yet one the crowds always want - around 100-150’000 people singing every word.

As they closed and everyone turned to go back to their tents you looked around and could tell that everyone felt they had really seen something special - Well and truly Gobsmacked would be one way of putting it.

Split from everyone else, I zombie marched back to the car - running on empty, I waited in the cold and played back tracks on my I-pod - so many songs given so much more life now I’ve heard them live - you hear a few chords - hairs on your neck stand up and eyes widen - your memory kicks in and takes you right back there - there’s a price on the ticket - but the memory you get in return - you’ve got that for life - can’t put a price on that.

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