Leeds 2002

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Yet again, our plucky explorers visit the Leeds festival. The weekend turns out to be the most unforgettable of their lives. Which is exactly why they have decided to write it all down.

After a journey that should have taken less than an hour, but instead took nearer three, Steve and Mike are back at Temple Newsam. Sadly, since they last visited two years ago, the whole camping area has changed and the area where Mike and Steve originally camped is now a car park. They try to pitch their tent there anyway but the owner of the Renault suggests that the tent pegs might ruin his paintwork. So, with much grumbling, they instead go and camp in one of the ‘designated’ camping areas.

The lads seem to think they have found a suitably unbumpy spot near the top of a hill. It is only when attempting to go to sleep that night that they find that it is less than smooth and also, the slope means that everything in the tent – including Mike and Steve – slide into the bottom right hand corner. But our seasoned Leeds festivalgoers are not phased by something so trivial, eventually falling asleep at 1am covered in bags in the bottom right hand corner of the tent.
Strokes Song For The Day - 'Is This It'

Mike and Steve have decided that at this festival, they are going to make up for all the bands they missed two years ago, by watching enough music to make their ears bleed. First stop, the main stage, to watch Dillinger Escape Plan, almost totally unknown by either Mike or Steve. After a few songs it becomes painfully clear exactly why this band have made no impression on the boys’ musical taste – they are really really bad. If they’d have been any worse, they might actually have imploded through sheer rubbishness. So, the main stage is abandoned and the end of the Death Cab For Cutie set is seen on the second stage.

Next, is supposed to be Hoggboy. These fellows are from Sheffield, just like our lads; so much supporting is called for. Sadly, they have been swapped with Capdown on the bill, so they will now be playing at the same time as Hundred Reasons, who, it must be said – are a lot better. There goes the Sheffield loyalty.

So, to kill time before Hundred Reasons it is back to the main stage to watch Amen. From his vast musical knowledge, Mike has an idea about what type of music Amen will be playing and they do not disappoint. Well, not in that respect anyway. The band are pretty appalling so Mike and Steve amuse themselves by trying to work out the lyrics that are being sung.

During one chorus, the lead singer proclaims “I am a bacon roll” and during a different song, Steve spots the thought-provoking lyric “I’m going to take this Seagull and make it richer.” Deep.

After the removal of Amen to a safe and secure place, we welcome Hundred Reasons onstage. Shaggy-haired singer Colin Doran bounces around the stage as they perform a great set. Steve, who had not heard Hundred Reasons before that point, is much converted and promises to sell all his possessions and donate the money to the welfare of the band. Shortly after, this promise is withdrawn.

On the main stage next is Puddle of Mudd. The prospect of watching this band is about as appetising as eating at Little Chef. So, instead Mike and Steve watch the incredibly unremarkable Sparta after which, much time is spent wandering between stages watching a selection of songs by The Shining, Hell is for Heroes, NOFX and Incubus before settling down again to watch Six by Seven.

Following this, a quick march back to the main stage is called for. Slipknot are back! All day, Steve and Mike have been spotting Slipknot fans around the venue, including a small group of youngsters with their Dad and carrying packed lunches. Doesn’t exactly match up with the ‘People = Shit’ sentiment of the band.

Slipknot perform a very entertaining set, while young children are lead away from the festival by parents who are disgusted by such filthy music. They’ll pay more attention to what their sons and daughters are listening to next time before paying £30 for the day ticket to Leeds.

The Offspring pop up, play a fine set and leave again and next on the line-up is Prodigy. Now, Steve is rather a large Prodigy fan but Mike is no supporter of dance music. He does like ‘Firestarter’ and ‘Breathe’ though, so he is happy to hang around and watch. As soon as the band take the stage, there is an influx of dance music fans, who have clearly been waiting in the wings for their band to come on and now rudely push their way to the front as if it is their God given right. Or even their God given left, but there are less of them about since the ‘God given left’ famine of 1312.

Approximately half way into the set, one of the Prodigy songs begins with a long, boat like tone. Mike turns to Steve and jokingly suggests that it is in fact ‘Night Boat to Cairo’ by Madness. A few notes more and, shock horror, it is actually ‘Night Boat to Cairo’ by Madness. Approximately every Prodigy fan is puzzled by this new Ska direction that Prodigy have taken but Mike and Steve scream “Night Boat to Cairo!” at the top of their voices and sing throughout the song, accompanying it with the official Madness dance. Our two Madness fans agree that this is already one of the moments of the festival.

So, all that is left now is for Axl Rose and his gang to come out and pretend to be Guns ‘n’ Roses. Sadly, after waiting an incredibly long time, there is still no sign of the band. Much waiting followed, with a little side waiting, before the band actually emerged.

A hit filled set is played, with a few new ones thrown in. The new ones successfully indicate that it is easy for a band to imitate a band of old, but is much more difficult to imitate their song writing.

The band play well over the allotted time restrictions, due to the delay at the beginning, but the set is ended with many pyrotechnics and cheering. There was a bit too much cheese for our lads liking and it was all a bit staged, kind of like S Club 7 on drugs… which is not all that hard to imagine. Steve and Mike, who have been stood up pretty much all day, head straight back to the campsite to rest their weary legs. Sadly, this particular plan has to be delayed as the organisers have chosen this moment to block off the path back to the campsite. Eventually, they make it back to the tent, fill their faces with Jaffa Cakes and Nutri-grain Bars before drifting off into a much-needed sleep.
Strokes Song For The Day - 'Alone, Together'

At just before twelve, after a breakfast of more Nutri-grain bars and some Pro Plus tablets, Mike and Steve arrive at the main stage. The band that are playing are called Moldy Peaches and Mike and Steve have very little idea who they are. When they come onstage, they are dressed in a variety of fancy dress. The female singer is dressed in a strange medieval bear costume (?), the male singer is dressed as an elf and there is also a rabbit onstage. Not real I might add. Amazingly enough, this particular band are actually quite good. Mostly for their amusing lyrics, but their musical quality is not to be sneezed at either. Possibly a small cough, but definitely no sneezing.

Next on stage, Soundtrack of Our Lives. Earlier that morning, Mike checked the weather report on his phone to find out that it was to be quite sunny but there would some rain around lunchtime. Soundtrack of Our Lives come on around lunchtime. The rain starts and Mike envelops himself as figure 1.3.9 below. Sadly, Steve’s knees are not as supple and he can only produce figure 3.7.5.

Fig 1.3.9	Fig 3.7.5

The rain gets worse. Then a bit worse still. Then worse. And finally, a little worse still until the whole Leeds festival site is under 1220 metres of water. (Warning: This may not be accurate!)

When it eventually stops raining three weeks later, Mike has stayed mostly dry, only getting a damp back from his pitiful anorak letting water through. Whereas in addition to water getting through the anorak, Steve gets most of his legs soaked as well. His pants are found to be carrying as much water as the Derwent reservoir and several small slipknot fans tragically drown as he gets to his feet.

Although Mike is feeling incredibly smug from his brilliant bin bag usage, he notices Steve’s discomfort and so it is decided that a trip back to the campsite is in order. On the walk back, Mike and Steve see three people dismantling the Ark that they had begun to build ‘Just in case’.

On arrival back at the main stage, now dry and feeling much better, Mike and Steve catch the end of Dandy Warhols.

Next on stage is The White Stripes. They are a fantastic Brother and Sister combination. The former playing guitar and singing and the latter on the drums. The incredibly large main stage looks rather bare with just the two of them, but they make up for it in talent and play a selection of fantastic blues rock hits to the impressed audience.

At the end of the set, Mike and Steve wander down the hill to see The Vines. The two of them get within spitting distance of the stage but with all the packed bodies, they feel as though they will soon pass out, so they remove themselves from the hoard and watch the band while sat outside the tent.

Next on the same stage was Electric Soft Parade, a personal favourite of Mike’s, but during the break in between the two bands, Mike and Steve notice a strange happening on the slope of the hill. The large crowd now forms a ring around a rather muddy area of field where there is a mixture of mud wrestling and mud sliding going on. Those on the edge of the circle are seen to be fair game and there is much stampeding when incredibly muddy young people start sliding in the direction of the watching crowd.

As Mike and Steve watch the fun, a young female member of security starts a slow walk across the muddy arena. As soon as she is in the circle, the crowd encourages the muddy fellows to get her into the mud. A bunch of lads slide in her direction, but with no more than a hop and a side step, she is out of their way. Sadly, she was not prepared for the other lad who comes up behind her and trips her up.

There is much cheering from the watching crowd when she falls into the mud, but on standing up again, it is clear that she is not a happy girl. A group of large, burly security guards are brought over to break up the fun and that is exactly what they do, quite violently in fact. A young lad is escorted from the site in reverse and in a headlock. Who’d have thought that the penalties for having fun would be so high?

Mike and Steve sit in the sun watching Electric Soft Parade and then it was back to the main stage for Pulp. The band come onto the stage and Jarvis immediately began to throw oranges at the crowd (?). After a few songs, he apologises for his recent performance on ‘Stars in Their Eyes – Celebrity Special’, on which he performed a very convincing ‘Two little boys’ as Rolf Harris and goes on to insult Toploader, which is never a bad idea in Mike and Steve’s book.

Pulp play most of their best tunes, though they missed a few of Mike’s favourites. The sound of 30,000 people all singing Common People is not a moment to forget in a hurry.

Next up are the Strokes. Lead singer Julian Casablancas hobbles on following his recent knee injury and takes a seat in the middle of the stage. The Strokes perform a fantastic – if a little short – set but nothing else of interest happens. Unless you count the stage been invaded by 312 sheep, one of which was wearing a rather nice hat. And the tallest man in the world who had the joint record for biggest Afro who stood in front Steve throughout the set.

Back to the campsite, again with difficulty following the messing about of security, for excessive sleep before the final day.
Strokes Song For The Day - 'Hard To Explain'

Sunday is ‘main stage all the way’ day. The day starts with a bit of Swedish female rockers, Sahara Hotnights. All mighty foxy and a damn fine band as well, even if the crowd was a little sparse at that point.

Next is Vex Red, a band that Mike attempted to see in his hometown of Sheffield a few months previously. Sadly, they cancelled to tour America so Mike has had to wait until now to see them. The band are good and play almost all of their debut album. The lead singer seems to be a goth wannabe and is either very nervous or incredibly high, saying “We’re gonna rock!” in an incredibly unconvincing way. If it had been 10pm then the crowd may have responded more favourably, but with it only being early afternoon, they just look at him as if he’s wearing a Moldy Peaches bunny costume.

Mike piles to the front of the crowd for the next singer. It’s Andrew WK! Generally hated by most of the world for his cheesy rock, he puts on a mighty fine live show and is clearly enjoying himself greatly, jumping about the stage and avoiding all the bottles being thrown in his direction. He even gets a random crowd surfer up onto the stage and places him on his shoulders, whole continuing to jump about.

Bizarrely enough, one particular crowd surfer who is actually riding an inflatable dinghy upstages Andrew half way through the set. The security whose job it is to catch all incoming crowd surfers are slightly thrown by this, unsure whether to catch the sailor or his boat. He safely makes it down, but is escorted from the area without his dinghy.

The perils of crowd surfing are seen all too clearly as a young lad is taken away in a wheelchair with his leg out and his kneecap on the side of his knee.

‘A’ are the next band on the main stage. The lead singer can’t really sing and Mike and Steve remember them from two years ago. So, instead of watching, they have a lie down on the grass and attempt to catch up on sleep. The young lad nearby is not much of an ‘A’ fan and spends the whole set shouting at them to “Fuck off!” Mike and Steve agree that the man has a valid point.

Next is Less Than Jake, an American Ska Punk band that Mike has a particular liking for. Amazingly enough, they have Meatloaf playing saxophone (Warning: This may not be true). Towards the end of the set, they try and get the mosh pit to run around the main control unit where all the video equipment, lighting and sound is controlled. Mike is sure that this doesn’t have a chance of working, right up until the point where it does work. About 5-10,000 people are now charging around the control tower. It’s an amazing site and Mike and Steve are right in the middle of it. It’s a bit of a squash and not what you would call ‘safe’. Steve is offered a ‘leg-up’ by a random gentleman, which he accepts and starts to crowd surf around the control tower instead. This is up until the point where he very nearly crowd-surfs through the open window of an ice-cream van containing a very bewildered ice-cream man. Before long, the insanity is dispersed and Steve leaves the ice-cream van with only 73 choc-ices for his troubles. Mike and Steve find each other again just before The Hives come on stage. The Swedes are all wearing their trademark

Black trousers and shirt with white ties and white shoes, a few turnips nearby are upstaged. The lead singer, Pelle Almqvist is in fine fettle and amuses the crowd greatly with his excessive comedy vanity.

“This next song is our new single. Buy it if you want, but to be honest, I don’t really care, as I am independently wealthy. Buying it will make you a much better person though,” he announces. Sadly, neither Mike nor Steve bought that particular single when it came out and have remained unbetter people.

After dedicating a song to himself, Pelle and the band perform their final few songs and then leave the stage.

Sum 41 are next, clearly determined to be the ‘bad punk pop band’ for the day. They succeed. How nice for them.

The next band, Ash, were doubtful that they would make it to the festival. Shortly before the weekend, the band were involved in a bus crash and the worst affected was drum Rick McMurray who made a mess of his ribs. The doctors said he shouldn’t play but instead, he chose not to disappoint the Leeds crowd and the band came on and did their full 50-minute set. So a big ‘Well done that man’ to Rick McMurray.

Sadly, while Ash were doing their thing, Mike was more interested in the incredibly cute girl in front of him in the crowd. He keeps looking in her direction and she doesn’t seem not to be looking in his direction either, which is usually a good sign. Mike smiles a lot in her direction and at the end of the Ash set, she turns and smiles at him. Then sadly, she walks away and Mike doesn’t say anything! He doesn’t even say hello! What an incredibly daft tart. Mike is aware of what an incredibly daft tart he has just been and spends the rest of the evening annoyed at himself, complaining to Steve about his daft tartedness. Steve eventually gets sick of this and sensibly tells him to shut up and watch Muse, who are making a fine job of their set. They perform all the favourites, such as Newborn, Bliss, Muscle Museum, Feeling Good and Plug in Baby. After the final song, Matt Bellamy (lead singer) leaves his guitar on the speaker, which has been knocked over. Consequentially, the crowd receives about 15 minutes of feedback before a wise gentleman controlling the sound decides that it might be best to switch it off.

Before the final band of the festival can come on, there is the most almighty bottle-throwing contest. Someone has got hold of a few incredibly large balloons, which are trying to be popped by plastic bottles. Every time a bottle is successful in hitting the balloon, a cheer goes up. Eventually the balloon is popped by a bottle hit and is immediately replaced by another balloon. This continues for approximately three balloons before the crowd goes silent for the emergence onto the stage of the Foo Fighters.

Well, this is it, another Leeds festival almost over for another year. Fortunately Foo Fighters finish the festival in fine style, performing all their classic tunes including a few high quality ‘newies’ from their forthcoming album. Dave Grohl (lead singer) even has a short conversation with a naked man who is stood on someone else’s shoulders in the crowd. He even dedicates the song ‘Everlong’ to “The guy with the small dick”.

After the final song, there is an impressive firework display, to which all the required ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ sounds are heard from the crowd, before everyone wanders back to the campsite. On the way back to the site, one man and a group of ‘followers’ seem to have evolved the basis for a new religion. By waving a broom around, they have invented their new god. Unfortunately, this particular religion is caught short as the broom is removed from the crowd by a ‘non-believer’. Otherwise known as ‘security’.

Now, as we all know, the most eventful point of any Leeds festival is the final night. Two years ago, there was the most almighty riot with explosions and much chaos which Mike and Steve just happened to miss by sleeping through it all. This year, no-one knows quite what is going to happen, as the security has allegedly been improved to prevent the scenes of carnage that have previously been the last night at the Leeds festival. There is a feeling of tension in the air as the campsite sit and wait to see what will happen. At 1am, there has been little more than some shoutiness, so Mike and Steve turn in for some much-needed rest.

The next day, our lads pack up their things and head for the train station. As far as they can tell, it was quite a quiet night. As they wait for the train with lots of other tired, mud-covered people, Mike and Steve start receiving lots of text messages which are either checking that we are alright, or asking if we started it?

A little puzzled, Mike checks the recent festival news using his mobile phone and finds out that on the other campsite, the one that Mike and Steve weren’t on, there was the most almighty riot. Vast quantities of explosions and destruction of festival property, such as toilets and security huts and it was even necessary to bring in the riot police to calm things down. In other words, the shit and the fan became very close acquaintances.

So, for the second time running, Mike and Steve have avoided the Leeds riot. Anyone would think they actually went to the Leeds festival to watch bands instead of just to cause trouble???
Strokes Song For The Day - 'Last Nite'