Saturday

For reasons best known to herself, Becca has decided that for this year’s V99, we shall commute. To Chelmsford. ( Thankfully from London, as we live in the wilds of Yorkshire. But still... ) To this end, we arrived in our nation’s capital on the Friday, and now, en route to the festival site - prompted by yesterday’s episode of South Park - we are happily singing the Marilyn Manson classic ‘Stinky Britches’ at any given ( in-) opportune moment. Leaving Dave’s house ( Kings Cross ) at 12:30, and meeting Elaine in Liverpool St. via a McDonalds Happy Meal lunch ( I don’t remember dread-locked jumpsuit hippy-bib wombles, thankyou ), we’re into the festival site with our freshly purchased tickets just before half past three. Just in time for THE LEVELLERS. ( Sadly, five years after a point where I would have cared. ) We ask a passing man of reasonable import ( ie he had on a festival t-shirt & some sunglasses ) for line-up information, or the whereabouts of a board of details which isn’t a fiver to peruse, and the lovely lovely man helpfully tears out the relevant page from his guidebook. Which has times for both days on the one side, festival contact telephone numbers on the other. And so we learn that someone called Hobbit is in charge of press, who to talk to about hiring Rock Steady Security, and that the SNEAKER PIMPS are due on on the Other Stage in, ooh, seven minutes. Which we find with the help of our feet. And the woman selling the yummy smelling chocolate nut things. And then the festival site is treated to some gloriously entrancing spider’s web music, chugga-chugga bass-lines and candy-floss vocals, courtesy of Pixie Chris and his band of merry pranksters; set highlights include the thumping sex-start to ‘6 Underground’, and the incessant throbbing calling of ‘Lightning Field’. People around us slowly realise that, yes, the singer has changed ( sex ) somewhat since last the band were seen. And we just shimmy as is befitting the art unfurled before us.

And then, set over, decision time. Next band on here are dEUS. Whom I do want to see. But watching people take half an hour to clear & rearrange the stage in preparation for them is, well, dull. Which is one reason why we wander off for a bit. Further impetus is added by the fact that I am currently surrounded by people in Shed 7 t-shirts ( ‘i was much too far out all my life / and not waving but drowning’ ), and I find this deeply unsettlingly worrying. But there’s also that ‘MELANIE C’ is about to make her solo debut on the Mainstage, and we haven’t really got anything better to do than go and gawk at the bounciest Spice Girl with the best-voice being heckled in unattractive shorts. So we do. And find a sunshine-burst of energy wrapped around a host of unimpressive songs & bad choice of covers. So. Now I can say I was there. Briefly. As I, um, make my way back to the MTV Stage fairly swiftly. Much preferring the pulling power of dEUS, Antwerp’s finest export... Who rock in a far less prescribed manner. Besides which, they are the musician’s equivalent of a space-hopper ( ie, they make you bounce & grin inanely ). And they feature fantastic songs, an electric violin, lyrics which take in arithmatic, and a luvverly young elf in a skirt of which Dot Cotton would be proud. Niiice.

And then, I’m off and haring over to the Mainstage delights of Supergrass. As I come over the hill, I’m met with the sound of a Mystical Machine Gun. ‘Bad choice of song from the DJ’ she thinks, and keeps going. ‘Still, at least I haven’t missed the beginning of Supergrass.’ I get a bit further down the hill. Now I can see the onscreen footage of Crispian Mills, mouthing into his microphone three seconds out of sync with the music. ‘Oh, it must just be old festival footage they’re playing us’ she thinks, having spent very little time before the screens, ‘Thank heavens I can’t see anyone onstage’. I get a bit further down the hill, and am now able to see around the giant tree that’s square before the Mainstage. ‘Aaah, fuck, it IS Kula Shaker...’ I haven’t missed Supergrass, because they’re not on. ‘Still’, she thinks, ‘When it comes to it, I’d rather miss Supergrass than Placebo’. Oh-ho-ho, the irony. I ask a security guard what’s going on. One of Placebo has tonsilitis. Supergrass are on next. Kula Shaker are filling in the gap in the bill. Oh. ( pause ) Damn. ( Pause ) Wait a minute, d’you mean that someone actually sat there, and thought; ‘The gloriously-presented pouting gender-blurring Bowie-rock triumverate of sex-power can’t play. Let’s get some wibbly Indian arse instead.’ ( pause ) Actually, it was probably just that Kula Shaker were the only TFI-sized band in the country who - for some taste-related reason - hadn’t been booked to appear anywhere else. Twats. And then after Crispian ( hello Mr Pot ) had derided the absent Brian for his androgyny ( I’m Mr Kettle ), and announced Mnsr Molko’s non-appearance was due to his having a week long wank, I fell into the mosh for SUPERGRASS, and was promptly felled by the surging crowd. Yikes. The rest of the bouncy castle set was watched from the wings of the crowd. Conclusions - they haven’t lost it, I do wanna hear the new album, and... they’re definitely singing ‘HHHumping’. Tight, pert, smiley. We loves them boys...

After which it was onward and upward to THE BEAUTIFUL SOUTH. Who weren’t crap. Which was nice. Because I, along with at least 2/3 of their audience, was only there in preparation for the headliners. But I wasn’t squashed, I was just cosy, and to my amazement, I knew all the words to everything they played AND didn’t mind wailing along ( though that might have more to do with the Malibu I was necking - yes, I am a living YY28’s lyric - than anything else ). From their set I have realised that it’s alright to give yourself over to pop, that gospel choirs are the most amazing thing you can have onstage ( because of the harmonies, the power, the continual booze ingestion... ), and that Paul Heaton ought not be allowed to dance in public without a licence, and the surrounding public being issued though eclipse-safety glasses.

Big Screen MTV Confessions Booth Confessions of Choice:

the 2 Americans who were supposed to be groomsmen at a friend’s wedding ‘back home’,

until they realised they could be here watching Supergrass instead.

And then there was the MANIC STREET PREACHERS. Who are most of the reason for my presence at this festival. And who fucking rocked. They were on top gobby form - a leopard-print Nicky deriding The Levellers and crowing over his £5000 backstage toilet ( James - ‘Some bands would have spent that on cocaine, but not us...’ ) - they have some new onscreen film footage ( fading in polaroids and a snap-shot video-history montage ), and the sound was just so... pure. They didn’t do an encore, they did do ‘Of Walking Abortion’, and ‘La Tristesse’ was dedicated to James’ mum ( God bless ). And they premiered the new single, which is moving away from the golden syrup of the last album - ‘Masses Against The Classes’ sounds like a speeded up ‘Tsunami’ with nicked riffs from ‘Faster’ and ‘Yes’. And once the set was over, the stage descended into delicate anarchy at the hands of the Wire, as he struggled to pull over speaker-stacks, and leisurely hurled the mike-stands around, to enraptured cheers from the enraptured sheep-like crowd set-end, before flashing his pants at us, and sauntering off. Heh-heh… Oh, but they made me a lot happier than at Glastonbury. Grin.

Last revised: 27/07/01