_____I pride myself in being a pretty punctual person. For one, it’s generally impolite to keep others waiting purely on account of your selfish laziness, but also because punctual is fun to say. And remember, if you weren’t punctual, you’d be tardy, which sounds kinda funny. As humorous it is however to laugh and brand lazy people as tardy, I must hold my hands up and admit to my own tardiness in writing this report on what is in my opinion the best music festival on these isles.
___For myself and my fellow festival friends returned over a month ago from the musical heart of Yorkshire, and I’m only getting round to it now. You’d think the delay would be down to my ever-lengthening work-hours, my adjusting to college life, or perhaps my shameful addiction to SkyMovies, a thirst so unrelenting I now find myself scouring the TV guide looking to score each and every night. Speaking of which, who else had completely forgotten how awesome Bedazzled was?
___Anyways, I‘m on the mend now, and I’ve finally finished the definitive set-by-set guide to why you should have been in sunny Yorkshire for the last weekend of August, or at least further south at Leeds’ older twin sister Reading, where although you do have to put up with Axle’s antics, at least they still speak English down there.
**Friday 27th August**
_____Waking up to something other than a torrential downpour and already things are looking good. Breakfast composes of the usual tinned pineapple and tinned tins, then it’s time to hit the arena.
NME Stage - Everything Everything
_____As one of my favourite groups at the moment, I would never have forgiven myself for arriving at their all too brief set 15 minutes late if it was anything other than a flawless, and thoroughly repeated rendition of Dear Prudence back at the tents that had kept me. Crushed as I was that I missed Suffragette Suffagette, Jonathan Everything’s angelic recital of MY KZ UR BF just about managed to help me hold back the tears, only for them to come flooding out in sheer joy as Photoshop Handsome started up. Seriously, these guys are fantastic. They deserve an evening with the Queen.
Main Stage - Mystery Jets
_____With the sun high in the sky, and on a soaring high after a beautiful weekend-opening set from Everything Everything, this was already shaping up to be a superb weeken- oh my Christ Blaine Harrison (that’d be the dashing lead singer of Mystery Jets) is on crutches! The poor petal. But don’t worry, like a true professional this does not hinder the performance in the slightest. If anything, it only added a little extra sting to the tragic lyrics of the only song a Mystery Jets set should ever finish on, Behind The Bunhouse.
___The set again was quite short, only space enough for six songs, but to be fair, although it’s a perfectly pleasant song, Serotonin would have been the only one I’d have swapped out, would have killed for a bit of Veiled In Grey or Waiting On A Miracle or Flash A Hungry Smile or…
NME Stage - 3Oh!3
_____Perhaps the only thing more entertaining than watching two obnoxiously white boys jump around singing some of the most horrifically catchy songs is watching how a crowd of teenage girls and boys go absolutely crazy to perhaps the simplest song ever written. As much as I’d love to, I can’t fault these two, they are nothing short of mavericks.
NME Stage - Hadouken!
_____I owed it to my 4th Year self to go and see the most ridiculed band in the world just this once. No Liquid Lives unfortunately, but Get Smashed Get Crashed and That Boy That Girl more than made up for that, while it was with heroic constraint that I refrained from joining the sweaty mass of 14 year old northerners for House Is Falling Down. Also, say what you will about H! and their almost exclusively pubescent fan base, but these guys were probably one of the closest to blowing the roof off a tent which also hosted the likes of Crystal Castles, Klaxons, and Pendulum.
Main Stage - Arcade Fire
_____I had originally planned to see The Libertines before these, but drunkenly decided an extra hour of Tesco Value Wine would be more beneficial. It was, unsurprisingly, not, as not only did I not see The Libertines, which is probably my biggest regret of the festival, but I was also a tad too drunk for Arcade Fire. So I don’t really remember much apart from the intro to Intervention. Oh, and there was a pretty small crowd for them, around half the size of that of Libertines apparently… Here's what they sounded like anyways.
**Saturday 28th August**
_____I woke up with an unimaginably intense hangover. So bad that it still hasn’t fully gone away. Tinned pineapple offered some resistance, but ultimately there was only one thing I could do to fend off this beast trying to eat my brain from the inside out, and that of course, was tins.
NME Stage - Local Natives
_____Recovering from the night previous meant we had to sacrifice seeing Motion City Soundtrack and, more saddening still, The Joy Formidable (apparently they were awesome). So we only reached the arena halfway through Local Natives’ tantalising set. Their live performances seem to be executed with tremendous precision and also constraint, with each member clearly giving it absolute socks, but never once missing a note. At the end of their set however, they allowed themselves to let go of their discipline and simply rocked out with an African percussion ensemble. Cooool.
NME Stage - Los Campesinos!
_____One of the most eagerly anticipated bands of the weekend for me, and they certainly didn’t disappoint. The stage was basically overflowing with energy, and guitarists also; there was hardly room for lead Campesino Gareth to bop around ADHD-ly in true indie-kid fashion. He managed though. I still remember the crowd’s excitement growing in an almost exponential fashion as You! Me! Dancing! approached. When it did arrive, you could see every single eye in the place light up with joy. Rightfully so too. My favourite however, came immediately afterwards; The Sea Is A Good Place To Think About The Future one of my songs of the weekend.
Main Stage – Weezer
_____Now this is where things get kind of exciting. The whole group together, and on the whole pretty merry, Rivers Cuomo and friends kicked off the evening in spectacular fashion. I’m not going to lie, the night previous I had had horrific nightmares of a setlist projectile vomiting Raditude material for 45 minutes. That’s not to say Raditude’s was that bad an album, it’s certainly better than Maladroit, and Make Believe wouldn’t be streaks ahead of it, but in all seriousness, when Weezer’s trips to Europe are so few and far between you’d swear they were rowing across, it’s Surf Wax America, Say It Ain’t So, Island In The Sun that you want to hear. And thankfully we did.
___Contrary to all my fears, they didn’t over-eagerly push Raditude, and to be fair to them, they didn’t pull an Arcade Fire and play 14 songs off brand spanking new record Hurley either. My only criticism of a beautifully Blue setlist was the lack of Pinkerton material. I know the album isn’t the bands favourite, and got mixed reactions from the public, but how can you leave out Tired Of Sex?
___I’m hardly going to complain however, considering that they threw in not only my beloved Kids/Pokerface cover, but an extra surprise for a deservedly massive crowd…
___You gotta give it to ‘em, Rivers Cuomo is one of the best showmen in the business. Around over 15 years, and he still has the energy and enthusiasm to run the breadth of the stage frame repeatedly, eventually ending up climbing up and over the stage walls and into the crowd during an epic finale. Cuomo being mobbed by masses of ecstatic people to the tune of Buddy Holly is without a doubt my fondest memory of Leeds 2010. Hats off to you, Weezer, I had ridiculously high expectations of you, and talk about overkill.
Main Stage – Paramore
_____Unfortunately for Paramore, everything about Paramore’s set was unfortunate. For one, it’s very placement, shoved between Weezer and Blink 182, two of the most anticipated bands of the festival Secondly, Braham Park was struck by a vicious crosswind right about the time Hayley Williams pranced on out, resulting in horrendous audibility problems for anyone standing beyond an overpoweringly pubescent smelling pit .
___So after Weezer, with the crowd on a 100% purely musical high, they had practically unachievable expectations piled on them. And when they inevitably failed to reach them, through a combination of poor song choices and half the crowd not being able to hear the poor song choices, it was a pretty poor performance. Still Hayley was looking mighty fine...
Main Stage – Blink 182
_____This was the one most of us had been waiting for. The wind had courteously died down; the sun respectfully set. Everything was in place for an awesome night of nostalgia. Which it was. Every single part of it.
___It’s hard for me to describe those two very special hours. I know they began with a saliva-inducing blaring of Dumpweed and ended with a euphoric Damnit, but everything in between is just one big incredibly immature blur. There was jumping around like idiots to Feeling This, sappy arm swaying to I Miss You, attempted singing along to Always, and whole-hearted screaming along to Stay Together For The Kids. Unfortunately any description of what happened during numerous other songs, What’s My Age Again, The Rock Show, Carousel included, would breach my strictly PG guidelines. Plus recounting them might provoke similar reactions to those that left me having to avail of my spare pair of boxers that weekend in Leeds…
___The set as a whole was practically flawless, completely free of sound or other technical issues, and riddled with unprofessionalism, and all three of these combined made Blink 182 easily the most entertaining band of the weekend. Not only were we treated to every single Blink hit you can think of, save Adam’s Song unfortunately, but understandably considering past events, but in between the on-stage banter between Mark and Tom meant there wasn’t an idle moment throughout. When I say on-stage banter, I’m referring to the outbursts of random swearing, my favourite being an enthusiastic “Blowjob!” which was preceded by First Date, although if life has taught us anything it’s that they never go that well (ba dum dum psssh). There was also plentiful announcements of interesting facts about the band: “I want to go down on Barack Obama!” – Mark Hoppus; “Mark drinks warm piss for breakfast!” – Tom DeLonge.
___Amusing as all this was, it will not be for rude words or Mark’s curious habits and sexual desires that this gig will be remembered. No, this was the official European reawakening of a global superpower in encouraging mischievous behaviour in adolescents. And if Sunday nights antics are anything to go by, gosh were they missed.
**Sunday 29th August**
Billy Talent – Main Stage
_____Sunday’s main stage this year had one distinct theme to it; pure and simple rock music. Glancing at the poster, obviously it was names such as Guns n’ Roses and Queens of the Stone Age that catch your eye, but further down the programme was a slyly hidden gem in the form of 4 Canadian rockers.
___Undeniably underrated this side of the Atlantic, yet they still managed to pull a far from disappointing crowd. While admittedly I would seldom listen to one of their albums on repeat, I’m quite fond of quite a few of their songs, and although Standing In The Rain didn’t make an appearance, an enrapturing Try Honesty meant I was left anything other than dissatisfied with the set.
NME Stage - Girls
_____We may have only caught the last three songs of their set, and we may not even have been inside the tent but sitting down in the sun watching a screen outside, but Lust For Life deserves a mention regardless of whether it was heard from the front row of a festival stage or just on the radio at 2am in the morning. I say forget those one-hit-wonders The Percussion Instruments or whatever they’re called and check out some real indie music.
NME Stage - Two Door Cinema Club
_____To be honest I’m kind of tired of writing about these guys. Far from tired of seeing them, after delivering a fun-filled set all three times I haven’t got a bad word to say about the Northerners, but to write out my Pantiero review of them again would be slightly laborious, and I don’t like labour. But yeh, indie-rock on.
Main Stage - Biffy Clyro
_____After being allocated a disgustingly shot slot at Oxegen earlier in the summer, a proper Biffy set was one of my most hotly anticipated of the festival. Sun shining, pleasantly tipsy, and amongst an even bigger crowd than I expected, all was set for three Scotsmen to come out and rock our worlds. But all of a sudden, a half-naked Santa Claus appeared on stage! Oh no, wait, that’s just Simon Neil’s new bizarre hairstyle…
___Any confusion resolved, the awesome-ness began with That Golden Rule. The awesome-ness then continued with the likes of Living Is A Problem, Mountains, Who’s Got A Match, and Shock Shock, and eventually concluded in usual fashion with The Captain.
___Apart from the resounding awesome-ness, there’s not a lot else I need to say about this set. It was everything it should have been and then some. For those of you who still haven’t copped on and ditched Kings Of Leon (although I quite like their new song) for some real rock music, I pray you, get a grip and Mon the fucking Biff.
Main Stage - Queens of the Stone Age
_____In my opinion QOTSA were one of the grabs of the festival this year, which is why I was almost more astounded upon seeing people pour OUT of the Main Stage after Biffy then that time someone said they “just didn’t get the whole Radiohead thing”. They must have been heading for Mumford & Sons or something, but all ridiculousness aside, the parting of the masses did at least bring some positives; as they began to file out, numerous 40 and 50 year old overweight smelly rockers were revealed, sitting in deck chairs with faded GNR tour t-shirts and jeans so baggy you could hide a small child in them, a tactic used by many of them to sneak their young kids in to collect 10p cups off the ground and fetch them beer as their chairs became increasingly wobbly with every bum-wobble.
___After many laughs at these people’s expense, Queens finally emerged, and played one of the most memorable sets of the weekend. Josh Homme, however, probably won’t have many memories of the gig, considering he was absolutely locked. Like a true rockstar though, this only enhanced his performance.
___The set itself was made up of mainly Rated R and Songs For The Deaf material, however obvious classics such as Little Sister and Misfit Love made deserved appearances, the former possibly being my favourite of the set. Other contenders include Feel Good Hit Of The Summer and The Lost Of Keeping A Secret, but if I could only relive one of their songs, it’d have to be their last four all rolled into one; I Think I’ve Lost My Headache, Go With The Flow, No One Knows, and Song For The Dead. Absolutely brilliant.
Festival Republic Stage - Blood Red Shoes
_____As much as I love this boy and girl rock duo, they had been dealt the unfortunate faith of clashing with QOTSA, so even though I literally ran the second Josh Homme and co. wrapped up, I only caught their last two songs, luckily two of my favourite; Heartsink and Colours Fade. But one things for sure, I won’t be missing them the second time.
Festival Republic Stage - The Sunshine Underground
_____These are a band I only got into around the time the lineup was revealed (you’d be surprised how many slick bands you can discover by YouTube-ing posters), but in the 4 months leading up to the festival I fell in love with them. Well, mainly just their second album, their first wasn’t up to much. Being a local band at the festival, they attracted a massive crowd for the tent they were put in, and boy did they go down well.
___My two favourite songs always were Borders and Commercial Breakdown, and it would appear I’m not the only one with said preferences, considering how flipping mental the crowd went for them, and although to a slightly lesser extent, pretty much every other song too. ___Without a doubt one of my favourite bands of the summer, worth checking out for those of you who haven’t yet heard of them.
Festival Republic - Marina & the Diamonds
_____All of a sudden, we found ourselves at the last set of a truly tremendous weekend of music, craic (a word the English comically failed to understand), and of course, tins. Although it had also been a very long and tiring weekend, and in the gap between the penultimate and final acts of the weekend, I found myself literally struggling to keep my eyes open. Once the darling Marina arrived however, I’m pretty sure I didn’t even blink once.
___She was looking fabulous and sounding similarly. With only one album released, there was never really any mystery over what kind of setlist she would play, and sure enough it was pretty much a run through of one of the best albums of the year so far. A delicate I Am Not A Robot and a fantastic Oh No! were just two of the many highlights of an anything but disappointing set, and that’s said despite the inexplicably high expectations I always have of Marina. One thing I will say is that Numb was an odd choice of set closer I thought, but I suppose I was never going to be happy on hearing the last song of a Leeds Weekend.
