Leeds(Reading) ‘00
-
Sunday
The
mogwai has two muddy feet now. Almost as though he too has had to be wading
through the sludge to get about the place. Hmm. I don’t really understand why –
he hasn’t been walking around the site. I’ve been carrying him. And, being a
backpack, he does 
not have the internal motor system
necessary for individual propulsion. Still, he’s in a better state than my
trousers. Morning inspection reveals them to be splattered all over in mud of
differing shades (and textures), and still unpleasantly damp to the touch
(despite my hanging them up to dry from the roof supports). The decision is
–fairly swiftly – made to wear a skirt.
Some hours later, shocking pink and riddled
with safety-pins (my ‘Sunday’ look), I’m pootling away from the Burger Van in
the sunshine, clutching lovely warm chips, and fairly swiftly regretting not
buying a drink. (I thought I was being cunning; I’ve only got 2 hands, and if
one has the chips the other needs to be holding my jacket while putting the
wallet back in the mogwai and zipping him shut. An extra item to be clutched
throughout such proceedings takes them up to a Skill Level on the Crystal Maze,
and even though by this point it’s midday and I’ve been up for what seems like
hours, I’m still not ready for such a challenge.) I settle myself in front of
the Mainstage, and eat, smiling at KENT. Whose music is FAR better’n their
name… A couple of songs in, and some lads have sat down near me. One turns.
“D’you go to the Arena in Middlesbrough?”
I affirm this.
And that’s all he wanted
to know…
Set over, and I’m treading the woodchip path
over to the Evening Session Stage, thankful for a perky turn to the weather and
the festival organiser’s willingness to put down straw and the like to 
absorb the spreading
mud.
(Michael Eavis won’t.
‘If you want straw’, he told us in ’97, ‘go to Reading’. So we did.)
I
settle into the tent, excitable mostly on the basis of the name of the next
band on. The sake of THE GET-UP KIDS. It sounds like there’s a ‘Why Don’t You’
ethos behind their moniker, and, having heard the set, behind their songs as
well. They sound like a comic strip,
the sort that could take on them lot from Bash Street… endearingly punky, and
happily unconcerned for technical wizardry so’s long as they can play. And
maybe connect with their crowd… As it should be, one supposes.
Too lazy (tired) to move, I stayed put when they’d finished. (Even
though the Delgados were on on the Mainstage…) Was found by folks I know. And
got myself a nice little place at the front for my troubles. For the spitefully
energetic JJ72. Whose singer is blessed with a crackin’ voice, and who can lend
toe-tapping passion to any subject. Even the absence of snow as forecast.
(Bless.) And midway through the set, when the rest of the band disappeared off,
Mark got to do his angel acoustic solo, and just generally stun the crowd with
talent. Shame on me for not having seen them before. It was beautiful.
Ian already vamoosed for the sake of Gorky’s on the Mainstage, on
checking the time I hared off from Becca & Claire as well. But the Carling
tent was running behind time, so instead of missing the start of my set of
choice, I actually caught the end of the previous one. And after five minutes
or so of fiercely energetic toe-tapping hoary rock, I realised them to be FIFTH
AMMENDMENT. (Last seen dressing up as washer-women to stage-invade Rachel
Stamp. Naturally.) The lead singer of whom climbed the metal tent support
pillars to chuck out t-shirts to the frenzied piranha crowd beneath her. (As
you can see, left. With your eyes.) And just when I started worrying that she
could fall, she motioned to the crowd to catch her, and then swan-dived off
into their waving arms…
And then onstage a man I haven’t seen since I enlisted him to help
throw underpants at The 
Pecadiloes at Reading, two years previous
(ooh, my rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle), since reincarnated, yet again, in a new
band. LITLE HELL. Which has – shock, horror, gasp – got girls in it. One
flailing about on guitar, and one pouting in leather trousers, purring into the
microphone. Which wasn’t what I was expecting. For those of you who remember
Carrie, I was basically awaiting more of the same. (Boys making poptastic
harmonies & infectious hooks rollicking together under riotous enthusiasm.)
Not an incredibly fierce re-working of Lodger. But Steve’s new band isn’t like
his old one. Very much RAWK, where I was hoping for a poppier cross-over.
(Sigh. I miss Carrie…) But on a couple of the songs where Steve was doing the
backing, it sounded like the Beach Boys trying to break into the Donnington
Festival… And on the strident ‘Love Makes You Come Hard’, the band’s potential
suddenly zinged out at us. Little Hell could really shine…
Moving across site, I caught a bit of
IDLEWILD. From the back. Beetled off to the Evening Session Stage, singing
along about fireworks, to see TERRIS. Realised when I got there that what I’d
been expecting was Melys. (Oops.)
Beetled back out again, and sought solace in the Comedy Tent. As is 
my wont.
And was there found by Becca & Claire
& Ian, who’s decided ‘UK Play’ should just changed their name to ‘Comedy
Tent’. (I’d love to see Carling bring out a new lager called New Band Stage…)
And there saw PARISMAN, a local indie
outfit. Who were a bit Madchester, and managed to be fairly palatable. But
nowhere near as good as HOMECUT DIRECTIVE. (Like Asian Dub Foundation, as
managed by Woody Allen.) Who actually managed to get some of the tent to stand
up. And dance. (Shock. Horror.) And who
brought out the lead singer of Leeds-band Helen for a Prolapse-esque duet/rant,
and yet again made the local crowd feel rewarded for knowing (of) her, just for
being local. Over the weekend, quite a lot of the acts made a point of asking
the crowd where they came from. Some just seemed to be after a demographic,
others genuinely interested. And the majority of the place names shouted out
could have easily amassed together into a list of settings for one of Alan
Bennet’s plays. Southerners have got Reading to go to. Yorkshire folk have
Temple Newsam. And, seemingly because it’s here, a lot more of them have
thought about coming. Though as the Barnsley scally (um, comedian) TOBY FOSTER
pointed out; ‘Normally if you’ve got this many people from Yorkshire in the one
place there’s either a piss-up or a strike.’
Once the compere - STU WHO - has complimented my hair (and used my
own material back on me 
in telling the tent about it… I tell
people I did it so my friends can’t lose me… maybe that’s just the easiest
joke…) and refuted the insinuation that marijuana always leads to harder drugs
by pointing out the fallacy of the stepping-stone theory… ‘Every alcoholic I’ve
ever met started with the same drink – milk.’ I leave. The rest of the Comedy
Tent’s occupants are in mildly giddy anticipation of the impending Peter Kaye.
But I have forsaken such joys for the sake of BLACK BOX RECORDER. And when they
arrive onstage, I realise my choice to have been a wise one. The boys are
dressed-up dapper in gold-buttoned pilot uniforms, while Sarah is resplendent
in trolley-dolley pencil skirt and deadly stilettos. (As if the Glastonbury
costumes hadn’t played to the crowd’s fantasies enough…)
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee for porcelain
flavoured rock ‘n’ roll…
And then a slight change of pace…
‘What’s thirty feet long and has no
pubes?’ goes Alex James’ favourite joke… ‘The front 
row of a Blur gig.’
I don’t think the others find it quite so
funny.
But they should do.
It’s universally applicable to everything
they do.
(I bet even Fat Les’d have a solid strip
of teens at the front of their gigs, despite Keith Allen’s gibbon face.)
Today, for GRAHAM COXON, is no exception.
All those Blur-linked are, it seems, to
be perpetually entertaining to those teetering on the brink of being seventeen.
I, at twenty-one, looked to be the oldest (and tallest) at the front. All the
blokes meanwhile were on the third or fourth rows back, their acuity somewhat
dulled, presumably by such a weighty female presence. ‘Ohmigod’, stage-whispers
the guy behind me when they come on, looking straight past Graham. ‘It’s the
drummer from Blur. Wow…’
Even just the one scrunched-up song in, and you can tell from
Graham’s quiet grin that, at heart, he wants to be in a different band. No-one
can look that happy playing scuzzed-up lo-fi in a shy drone, and face a reprise
of ‘Country House’ when touring with Damon and the boys… This ‘hobby-band’, now
doing ‘quite well thankyou’, gets to be his great escape…
So.
What next? Is it the hour of bewilderbeast yet…? Ah yes. Time for BADLY DRAWN BOY… Who was, prior to the gig,
thought of affectionately as the ‘tea-cosy rocker’. But when he appeared
onstage, fairly speedily just became ‘that bastard with the penis-shaped
super-soaker’. Tcha. Honestly. Don’t ever get your audience wet, boy. That
should be one of the Rock Commandments. So don’t spit on them, throw your
bottled water over em, or, as in this case, use 
your high-powered water pistol to drench
them.
‘We could’ve gone to see Beck instead of
you, ya know. And he wouldn’t want us wet…’ In retrospect, I think that maybe
my giving him the finger was the reason I didn’t get given the mouth-organ when
he came into the pit, and the girl next to me did. (Ah well.) The other
photographers – in the pit mind – also seemed fairly unhappy, and his playful
goading of them seemed suddenly reminiscent of Babybird’s one-time press
carry-on. Which fits – that isn’t the only similarity between the two. While
they don’t sound alike, their ethos is comparable, as is their creativity, and
also the way in which they are both out to create a new niche – just for
themselves – is slowly becoming realised. Though I’ve never seen Stephen Jones
covering ‘Born In The USA’ (hee-hee…) The badly drawn boy that is Badly Drawn
Boy seems to have grown more comfortable with performing as well – the shyness
so overwhelming at Glastonbury is since diminished. And by the encore the
roadies were actually packing up around him, as loath to leave the stage, Damon
lured his girlfriend out to sing along with him, resolutely ignoring the
technician at his feet waiting to unplug his guitar…
And then I didn’t go and see Beck. Because I was on the barrier in
the tent, and although it’s been three years since I saw him last, it’s been
four (eek) for the WANNADIES. Perhaps 
because of that – my essential
out-of-touch-ness – I wasn’t expecting the tent to be as packed as it is. No
disrespect intended, but they’re just little Swedish pop-monkeys. Who are very
good at their fizzy jobs, mind, but don’t usually generate such a crush. When
they start, the crowd surges forward
like a rolling pin (with feet), and almost immediately everyone along the
barrier is an inch thinner. I didn’t realise they inspired these levels of
adoration. Or quite such suffocation… I tell myself I’ll stay for three songs,
and if it hasn’t improved, then I’ll leave. And I stick it for that long, grinning
along to the tunes, trying to steady myself in the bouncing crowd to take
pictures, and concentrating as best I can on breathing. But after the three
songs, the question of how I’m going to get out is growing to seem far
more pertinent than if. There’s no space for me to just slip out to the
wings of the crowd, they’re all moshed in too tightly. Though I’m loath to go
forwards – besides my wearing a skirt (I have no desire to flash the crowd this
evening), I’ve NEVER 
been pulled out before. Somehow it seems,
well, weak. (‘What are you complaining about you wuss, it’s just a little
crushing asphyxiation…’) But. I can’t go backwards, there’s no way I could move
through that. And I’m saved from further vacillation by the Security Guard
standing before me, who could obviously read my unhappiness. He asked if I
wanted out, I acquiesced, and then putting an arm around the neck of him and a
friend, I was pulled out. Eyes closed, it felt like flying. And gave me such a
rush – moving through the air when I’d only just been fighting for it. Though I
was a little wobbly on my feet as I left the tent, and feeling just a little
bit more alive for it.
Teetering over to the Mainstage, I arrived in time for the last
bit of scratching from BECK’s set, a rabble-rousing ‘Sexx Laws’, and then a
stage-ful of weirdos and super-heroes running around on a decorating mission
with large lengths of piping and security tape. Blink and you’ll miss it
peculiarities, but then, you just had to keep blinking in disbelief. And when
they’d finally finished careening about the place and exited, the bloke behind
me had his fishing rod confiscated by security…
Three years in the waiting, another half-hour, and then there was
PULP. Doing a lounge-core 
version of ‘Common People’ as a ‘we’ve
missed you too’ introduction, before rattling off into some new material. And
you know what? They’re still good. The songs still all sound fantastic. Jarvis
is still drily funny, still dressing as he always did (they’re now ‘Fair-Isle
rockers’, we are assured, in honour of his jumper), and he still dances like an
angular Scarecrow. And they still care about us, too. When the rest of the band
try to kick in to the second song of the set, they are rebuked by Jarvis – he
hasn’t seen us for a goodly while, and he wants to have a chat. And when it
(erk) starts to rain after another few songs, Mr Cocker leads the entire crowd
in a mass demonstration of willpower for the sake of dry-ness. ‘STOP!’ comes
the collective yell. The drizzle falters, momentarily, and then resumes. Ah
well.
I
stayed for half the set, moving out of the front of the crowd so’s I could
watch from the wings of the field with my brolly up. (If I get my hair wet, it
will dribble colour. Nicht sehr gut.) And then wrenched myself away…
Negotiating my way past a Burger Van, I was stopped by a man
wearing a lot of plastic bags, who asked me what I’d been eating over the
weekend. Unimpressed with an answer of ‘Chewits, mostly’, he instructed me on the
importance of vegetables. Disregarding my 
vitamin-pill habit (‘ooh, I’m on 7 a week
now, it’s getting hard to break it…’), I was informed that I looked unhealthily
pale, and should have brought some broccoli with me. Or cauliflowers. To a
festival. I promised to put on more blusher the next day, and purposefully
disentangled myself from the conversation when he – a man wearing a lot of
plastic bags – started to harangue me on my hair & clothing’s colour
scheme. And moved off for the sake of QUEEN ADREENA. Who are most likely the
only band I would even consider dropping Pulp to see. And who were here – as
ever – so fucking good… Katie spasms and flails about the stage like a
balletic epileptic wood-nymph, Crispin concentrates on looking ‘n’ sounding
sharp, and the world’s campest cowboy sets his Izzard-jaw in a set-long pout
and stalks his corner of the stage like a territorial swan. It seems unnatural
that such people could exist, let alone play anything less than an Arena or
Mainstage, and the music that they’re making is of such inordinate inexpressible
quality that it doesn’t seem real to be witnessing it here. Queen Adreena are
going to set the world on fire, and you should all be there to fan the flames.
It’s going to be beautiful…
And after that abject gloriousness, I have to come down…
It’s raining. The ground is treacherous. And the only stage still
going is the one in the Comedy Tent.
Which is next to me. And is where I will want to be in half an hours time. But
not right now. Please no. WOODY BOP MUDDY – git - is currently underwhelming
the masses with his shabby routine, and I want no part of it. A record goes
onto the turn-table. ‘That’s not the Sound of Bread’ 
he yells, exactly as he did in 1995.
‘This is!’ And so saying, he waves a lot of bread around. Oho, my aching sides.
Mr Bob Muddy throws rice at the crowd, smashes up records, and insults both our
intelligence and also various popular beat-combos. If you know an act is of
quality, then repeat it, by all means. But if the routine is tired as well as
old, the ‘jokes’ predictable and the premise dull, maybe it’s time to give up.
It’s definitely time to leave when your audience start throwing things. Git.
What is odd (to me), is that the last time I had to sit through
his set, I was met with the people I’m actually in the tent to see tonight. And
even though SKATE NAKED – were doing pretty much EXACTLY the same set as last I
saw them. But I didn’t (and don’t) care. Cos they’re bald blokes who play with
fire, in very skimpy costumes. That’s enough for me. Though it wasn’t to
everyone’s tastes – they were constantly being heckled, and were so weary of it
by set-end that their sparklers were just hurled into the crowd. (Which was an
incredibly stupid thing to do. And not only ridiculously dangerous, but also
unpleasant too, considering where the things had been…) That wasn’t deserved. Though – honestly – if
you’re not going to be impressed by bald men in thongs doing synchronised
handstands on piles of bricks with sparklers clenched between their buttocks…
well then there’s probably no hope for you…
>>> Monday
Last
revised: 13/08/03