3 posts tagged “leeds festival”

Like Flanders, without the good poetry

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3 comments

But they've spent some money on upgrading Leeds this year. The stages are in a much more logical order, and the capacities have increased. The NME tent is absolutely huge. But still not big enough for the Pendulum fans. I'd never heard of Pendulum before, and fervently hope to never here from them again. Their appeal was inexplicable - the lead singer is about my age, and they're churning out the kind of drum n bass that would embarrass Daz Sampson, yet the kids are loving it.

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Leeds embraces me once more to it's tattooed breast.

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But it is increasingly becoming a resistible proposition. This year was the weakest line-up I can remember. Top heavy with Blokepop, MTV2 Americana, and commercial dance music. With too many bands promoted far higher up the bill than they deserve.

A personal low was The Twang – now I had been wondering where my plasterers had got to; and here they are, on the Radio 1 stage. The rest of the crowd are equally surprised, taking most of the first song to realise that these guys are here to perform on, not sweep, the stage. They have all the charisma of Mark King's haemorrhoids. But they're clearly enjoying their 15 minutes. They can't believe their own luck. A few months ago they were obviously 2nd support for an Ocean Colour Scene tribute act, and now they're playing Leeds. And with the fellow plodders of Blokepop, massively short-changing the audience. When Robert Plant said he was going to give you every inch of his love, you jolly well believed him. I wouldn't’t believe The Twang if they gave me an estimate for tarmacing my drive.

Electronica fared little better with Datarock – the Goldie Lookin Chains of Nu Rave - and Digitalism serving up grim, by the numbers, club fodder. A sloppy Blue Monday sample is all it takes to wow the crowd. Illustrating again that dance music is pretty much in the same position today, that rock was in the mid 70s: fat, bloated, and self consuming. Celebrity DJ's are this generation's Prog dinosaurs. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be the equivalent of Punk coming over the horizon to sweep them away.

There's the usual gripes about catering - burger vans as far as the eye can see. But even they were a more attractive proposition than the spiced sheep's lung on offer here.

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A vendor who'd chronically misjudged his market. There were no takers, and by day 2 he was reduced to giving it out, complete with whiskey shots to take the taste away.

And with the increased crowds, inadequate facilities – I spend 10 minutes queuing at the perimeter fence, waiting to piss on a Johnny Borrell poster. This is really something the organisers should address. They know how many people are attending, and it should be quite obvious what demand will be.

But there were some diamonds in the rough:

Crystal Castles

Tokyo Police Club

CSS

Battles

and it does look pretty when the sun goes down

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The potty mouthed ms nash

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