Leeds Festival 28-30/08

We set off from Humberston for Leeds on Friday morning, a journey of about 80 miles. Thankfully there wasn’t too much festival traffic, it looked like a lot of people had set up the day before. Going through the main security gate we had some bottles confiscated, they weren’t allowing any glass on site. Sadly this meant losing some Belgian cherry beer and having to put a new bottle of scotch into a plastic water bottle. At least I got to keep the scotch. We were into the main arena by early afternoon (another looooong walk from our van to the arena) and we were just in time to catch another secret show by Them Crooked Vultures at the NME/Radio 1 stage. Once again the band looked to be having a fantastic time, with huge applause directed at Dave Grohl whenever his face came up on the video screens. Next up we went to watch Ian Brown on the main stage, a slight slope meant that we could make out the stage if we stood up or watch the video screens if we sat down. We chose to sit down and enjoyed him cranking out a couple of Stone Roses tracks as well as a lot of hits from his solo career, his enthusiasm making up for a very flat sound. We made our way back to the NME tent in time to see some of the Maccabees, we had seen them at Glasto but heard a bit more this time, they sounded quite good but nothing too inspiring. White Lies, Glasvegas and Gossip all followed on the NME stage. We were well pleased as it meant we could avoid trudging between stages and stay under the marquee out of the cold. White Lies had an electronic/guitar kind of sound, quite reminiscent of Duran Duran in places (in a good way) and they had huge amounts of people singing along to their lyrics. Glasvegas were once again excellent, in front of a smaller crowd (most people where off watching The Prodigy) they still inspired some enthusiastic singing along and were excellent to watch. Gossip finished up our Friday night and the band played quite well, technical mishaps and microphone abuse by Beth Ditto aside. No encore due to time restrictions meant we didn’t hear ‘Standing in the Way of Control’ but the rest of the set was extremely enthusiastic and the crowd lapped it up. Saturday seemed to be much colder right from when we got up, mainly due to a keen wind gusting across the open site. First off we walked down to the Dance tent to see some of the Crystal Method’s set, the stuff we heard from their album ‘Vegas’ sounding just as good as on record. We were a bit curious to see Crystal Castles after that following a lot of hype we’d read in NME last year and they didn’t disappoint, a mainly electronic beat with some mostly unintelligible girl vocals over the top. Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, Bloc Party and Radiohead were out on the main stage for the rest of Saturday night, it was already getting cold before the sun went down and was very cold after so we stuck it out to hear Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and Bloc Party in full and we left during Radiohead’s set as we were both freezing despite multiple layers. All of the bands sounded great, with Kele from Bloc Party doing his best to get the locals enthused and dancing along. The blasting wind did do us one favour however, it meant we heard a fair bit of Radiohead as we trudged back to the van and heard the rest of their set quite well once we were in the van. Once again we were pleased to be in the camper rather than in a tent. Some were barely holding onto the ground in the strong wind. Sunday saw the inclement weather turn even worse with some rain coming down in the afternoon. We managed to avoid it by staking out a spot in the NME/Radio 1 Tent and stayed in there for the rest of the day. This did mean we missed Kings of Leon but we decided that being warmer and drier was more important. We suspect we’ll get to see KOL over the Australian summer anyway. The first act we saw on Sunday was Little Boots, she had drawn quite a crowd as it seemed she was a local and the end of her set saw her getting a load of rellies on stage to dance about to her last song. Next up we saw The Horrors, who had quite a dark, goth guitar sound along with some menacing vocals, they were quite good. Jack Penate was up next, he’s been hyped a bit in the UK press but we didn’t find anything too exciting, just another male singer/songwriter like so many before him, seemed popular enough with the crowd though. Florence and the Machine played an excellent set after that, so much so we’ve put their CD on our (very long) list to get. Their set was over quickly after a few epic songs and they apologised for not being able to do any more as they were ordered off the stage. Friendly Fires and then Jamie T took the stage, getting good responses from the crowd but beyond the bizarre dancing of the Friendly Fire’s lead singer nothing else really grabbed us. Faith No More had the headline slot in the NME tent up against Kings of Leon on the main stage. They still drew a respectable crowd and we were please to see that Mike Patton had indulged in a costume change from his earlier pink suit from Pukkelpop. With Mike resplendent in a glittery silver suit the band launched straight into business with abandon. At Roskilde and Pukkelpop the band had been opening with a song called ‘Reunited’ but I think due to time constraints they were going straight for the hits. Twice during the set the band played the Eastenders Theme, the second time drawing a great response and some smiles from the crowd. Mike seemed to be determined to mock the crowd and enjoyed baiting the predominantly English audience about ‘loving your tea’. Another cut back due to time constraints meant that the band didn’t play their ‘Chariots of Fire/Stripsearch’ medley, but everything they did play sounded excellent and the band were very tight. Sadly there was no encore due to organisers time constraints, the band apologised and then that was the end of the festival. We waited quite a while for the crowd to disperse before we headed back to the van over the muddy and treacherous ground, we saw a few people slip into the mud and didn’t want to be part of their number. We made it back to the van without incident and had something to eat while we listened to the wind and the crowd in the distance. Monday morning typically saw better weather than the last few days and we found it very easy to leave the festival site, with no queuing to get to the motorway and an easy drive back to Humberston, Aunty Anne and a much needed hot shower.