2001 - MY VERSION

Proving that they could not hack two years in a row, Rich, Pete and Sarah drop out

After the messy event of last year, we knew that a bit of preparation was in order this time. So in the week leading up to this Leeds Festival, we thought that it might be a good idea to have a week of detoxing to prepare our bodies for the hammering they were bound to take. We also took the tent out of its bag to see what condition it was in before getting there. The tent was in a bad way, covered in mud, mould and tomato sauce. After the problems with the weather I decide that one pair or trainers will be adequate for the weekend.

Wednesday

Go shopping for food, beer & BBQ, but forgot shopping list. Never mind. Decided that as we have nothing left to do we might as well have a beer and bring our detox to an official end (1 weeks detox lasting all of Monday, all Tuesday and most of Wednesday - not bad).
Go to Double Barrel. Met Weedy, Kitson and Sneedy - they tell us to shout "Rozza" when we go and watch Gene.

Thursday

Morning while Rob works, I get a hair cut, and buy some bread for barbequed sausage sandwiches.

Rob turns up at 4:30pm to drive to Katy's where we'll meet up with the others that are going this year. I forget to have a shave meaning that by the end of the festival I'm going to have a beard big enough to make me an honorary member of ZZ Top.

Get to Katy's sit round for a bit until others arrive. Load up cars, and drive to Leeds Festival. This year decide to use other entrance so we miss most of the traffic. All three car loads of us get out and load beer, bags and tent on to 2 trolleys. One trolley is never enough. Thought for next year - take some fragile tape to tape stuff to the trolley so that when it tips up on hitting a rock everything does not go everywhere....

Arrive 6pm, Rob phones Damo so that we can camp next to them. We know where we are, Damo does not know where we are, Damo does not know where he is. This was not going to work. Walk round for a bit looking for a tent. Still can't find them. Phone again - We know where we are again, Damo does not know where we are, Damo still does not know where he is. Walk round for a bit longer, its hard to find space for 1 tent let alone space for 4 together. End up at about 7pm pitching tent not far from where we were last year only, a bit further up the hill just by the walkway that diagonally dissects the field.

Tent up in about 5 minutes having brought new tent pegs and a mallet to knock them into the ground with is much better than using feet like last year. Sit down and have a cold beer of Robs (from the cool-bag - another bright idea, but really bought to keep sausages fresh until Friday morning) as mine are not chilled enough. While others struggle to pitch their tents (though we do assist a bit).

Rob & I go off to exchange tickets for wristbands and to look for Andy who is again doing security on a beer tent. Buy program so we get cardboard flipper on line up times on it, exchange ticket, go to beer tent and get a free pint. Head back to tent with more cans of free beer as decide that the others are going to be waiting to exchange their tickets

Others go off with directions to exchange tickets. After awhile get a phone call "Where is the exchange point?" Its not where it was last year as I said but next to the entrance like I also said. I make a better driver than navigator.
Phone goes again - Wesley has had his wallet grabbed out of his hand with a ticket in it for him mate who was on a plane over from Ireland. They spend the next 2 to 3 hours making a statement to the police. Katy returns at some point to join Rob and I drinking. Sit outside tents for ages drinking. Rob get hungry - no surprise so buys a burger, and then attempts to apply one cheese slice. Only half successful, as the other half ends up smeared over his trousers and tent entrance.
Get football result from WAP phone Sheff Utd 1 - Rotherham 1.
How nice it is to sit outside the tent and not get wet unlike last year. Sit out side tents drinking some more and watching people shopping-trolley racing Sleep at 3am

The Late Late Review

Friday

Woken up at 5:30am by a generator for a burger van. Not exactly the best of nights sleep due to hard ground.
Finally get up at 8am.
Rob goes and gets a cup of tea because he is hung over, I get one to stave off the lack of sleep and to generate some warmth. Find out that Sam and Maxine have gone home to have a wash just like all good festival go-ers do! Decide to light BBQ about 10am just as it starts to rain. Typical. Nick and Katka turn up and manage to pitch their tent on piece of grass no more than 2ft square (well maybe, but not much more).

How nice are barbequed sausage sandwiches in a morning? Especially when people are walking past looking at you in envy.

11:40am Decide to head in to arena with both Fleece (being warm) and waterproof (rolled up s not raining at the moment). Good weather, Leeds and festivals obviously don't go together.

Nick and Katka join long queue for ticket exchange. We join big crowed to get through to the wristband check area. This takes so much time that we end up missing most but not unfortunately all of Boy Hits Car who are opening proceedings on the main stage.

Next up (Hed)PE. Who like Boy Hits Car are just crap music with crap shouting over the top. Manage to some how stay round for most the set by drinking cold Carling on a plastic cup at a cost of £2.70

1:20pm Decide we are board with Hed(Pe) and the rain, and decide to take a walk round and visit the tests to see what's happening. See a bit of Hundred Reasons in the Evening Session Tent (stopping on way for a rip-off priced small cup of filter coffee) and the up to the New Band Tent to watch Fuzz Light Years - who play the only song I know first so after that the sent goes downhill pretty quickly.

2:40pm Leave tents as its now no longer raining. Take up positions near to the Main Stage beer tent where more beer is consumed with System Of A Down trying to play.

3:40pm I return to New Band Tent to watch Haven (1st JimBand of the year), while Rob goes to meet with the others to watch Alien Ant Farm as he wants to hear Smooth Criminal. As Haven finish before AAF, I go down to see (or rather hear) AFF. Find Rob sat outside of the tent as its too full. Catch them doing Smooth Criminal.

TWO HOUR GAP OF NOTHING

6:15pm Back to the Evening Session Tent to watch Lowgold, unfortunately end up seeing last song (if you could call it that) of Mark B & Blade.
Lowgold start off a bit shakily with the sound levels all wrong. Once sorted play a great sent including Beauty Dies Young, Counterfeit and Mercury along with a few new ones.

7:15 Lowgold finish so walk over to the main stage so Rob can again meet up with all the others to watch Marilyn Manson. Agree with Rob where to meet up to go and watch Gay Dad Later, because I'm back off to where I came, to watch Gene.

Gene play a blinder, mixing up new song Is It Over, with Fighting Fit, Good As It Gets, Sub Rosa, ending with Olympian. Songs interspersed with Shouts of "Rozza" from various parts of the crowd and Rozza himself looking like a man not to be messed with.

9:00pm Set new world record for time from Evening Session tent to catapult machine 2min 40secs. Robs turns up 5min later. Off we go to the New Bands Tent to watch 1999's Next-Big-Thing. Robs says last time he saw them, they had a big black female singer, and if shes not here then he going back to watch Eminem.

9:30pm (15 min late) Gay Dad emerge as a three-piece with no big black female singer. Robs stays. Lead singer Cliff a bit miffed with his guitar tuner as guitar is out of tune. Gets a bit fed up so plays To Earth With Love earlier that it should have been so he does not have to change guitar again.
9:53 Man from back of stage starts making cut-it signals halfway through a song. At end of the song Cliff asks if the can play one more, man replies with no. Bass player throws down bass, drummer storms off just leaving Cliff on his own. As amps are witched off around him Cliff announcers "This one will be accapelo (sp?) then". Two chords in his guitar is de-amped, followed by the microphone. Did he go off? No. He stayed on, duetting with the crowd with voice and hands to Joy. The biggest round of applause of the day if not the festival must have been when he left, to be followed by a chant of "Gay Dad! Gay Dad! Gay Dad!..." "Who was that?" someone asked.

10:00pm Rob goes to watch Eminem (this years Daphne & Celeste). I go back to the Evening Session Tent to watch the performance of the festival - Mercury Rev (JimBand).
Half the set was made up of songs from Deserters Songs, the other half from the at-the-time unreleased All Is Dream. It wasn't just the songs that were good, nor the lighting, nor the smoke machine nor the crowd. It was the entire package with Jonathan (vocals) conducting the whole lot.

11:10pm Meet up with Rob in Andy's beer tent in order to miss the queue back to the camp field. Get free beer.

The 'Free Beer Tent'

12:00 Go back to tent.
Everyone sat outside our tent as Nick has lit some candles. Nick tells us that Hefner (who were on after Gay Dad) were also good. Find ourselves joined by Jamie who is looking for his brothers tent in 'site C' - this is 'site L'. He eventually leaves at about 4:40am
In the meantime get joined by other random people - two from Bolton who just about claimed to know every musician that came from Manchester and the surrounding area. Two others one of which was the lead singer in Toploader and worked in a tax office. Though he did recognize that in Granddaddy's He's Simple He's Dumb, He's the Pilot there is a sample from AM180. Drink copious amounts of beer and whiskey.

This is what festivals are about.

Saturday

7:30am Wake up. Something's wrong, The temperature in the tent is near boiling point, and its making Rob smell.

Todays early line up is a bit of a disappointment, so no-ones in a rush to go anywhere. No more sausages, so breakfast consist of two cereals bars and a packet of ketchup flavoured crisps. Even less of a rush to go anywhere when Katy realises that here purse has gone. Not sure whether its been stolen, or just miss-placed so a military like search of all tents is carried out, but nothing found. So a call is made to cancel all credit cards.

1:20pm On Nicks advice we go and watch The Moldy Peaches. And we glad he did as we watch collection of fancy dressed (Robin Hood, Jo Brand, Spiderman, kamikaze-man-in-a-dress and a drummer) people bounce around on stage singing Who's Got The Crack?

After we sit outside in sun as you can guarantee that it will not stay around for long.

2:50pm Sit just outside Evening Session Tent to catch the sun and to listen to a band from the Isle of Mull called Mull Historical Society. They finish the set with a song called Mull Historical Society.

Walk round for a bit as the next band on that are worth watching are Eels who start at 4pm. Spot 4 or 5 girls in a group all wearing the same red and white clothes. Not much unusual in that at a festival, except they have the name Candy on their backs and are all carrying pom-poms. Decide that its Ash that we will be watching at the end of the night.

All the people, so many people...

4.00pm Go over to the main stage to see Eels. Find that they are already on, and are just about over (moved to accommodate The Strokes we find out later). Still here them do I Like Birds. Mr E looks like he has borrowed the facial hair of all three members of ZZ Top and then added some more. He also wore dungarees, it wouldn't have surprised me to see him driving off to Ipswich on a tractor later.

Another brake in good music means its back to the tent to drink free alcohol and more ketchup crisps. Find Katy, Sam and Maxine already back at the tents eating Pringles and trying to complete A to Z lists of various things. They get stuck with actors and say that actresses are not allowed, by try and get away with including Ian Beale as the Entry for I even though his real name is Adam Someone. I then get challenged to A to Z of Football teams and then JimBands but fail to name Y and Z bands unless Yes and Zoe Johnson who sings with Bent count?

5.55pm Richard Hawley (ex-Longpig and part-time Pulp guitarist) is on the New Bands Tent. Unfortunately not many people were there to see another top performance. As we left the tent had filled up (mainly by Oasis T-shirt wearers), but not because people were drawn in by the music but to see Proud Mary. If you get the chance to watch them in the future, don't bother, we didn't.

Richard Hawley - now a lonepig

6:30pm Down to the Main Stage to watch PJ Harvey. Looking great in a red dress, and sounding great playing tracks off Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea. Its just a shame I don't know more of them despite having the album.

8:00pm Green Day on the Main Stage play a greatest hit set as the sun begins to set on the second day. On stage with them are a bee that plays a trumpet for the entire set. Also up there are three lads that are pulled out of the audience to play a song with the understanding that "If you're crap all these people [us in the crowd] will kick your ass". Also for about 20 seconds in the middle of a song, 5 girls all wearing the same red and white clothes carrying pom-poms appear before being herded off. Was this Ash making a statement about the Strokes being upgraded to the main stage or a real mistake?
Green Day finished their set with a striped down version of a song due to the fact that they had just set fire to all there drums bar one.

9:30pm With a vast crowd already gathered to watch Travis, and a guess that if you were not already in the Evening Session tent then you had no chance of seeing Ash, we decided to watch Travis. They open the set with Sing, and sing is what every member of the crowd do. They play All I Want To Do Is Burp(Rock), U16 Girls, Tied To The 90s from Good Feeling. From The Man Who - the singles, and bonus track, and from The Invisible Band, Side, Flowers, The Cage, Safe and The Humpty Dumpty Love Song. Fran get the 2001 Jarvis Cocker Award for talking to the audience. Off they go, and back on they come for the encore of Happy and a cover of… no not Baby One More time by Bowie's All The Young Dudes, its not the same but its still good.

Travis - 'Midsummer Nights Dreamin' or,
Travis - Why do we alway reign on stage or
Travis - Can you hear them 'Sing'?

11:00pm Leave for the beer tent, but spot Ash are still playing so get as close as we can to the outside of the tent just in time for them to start the last song - Jack Names The Planets. I can just see the five cheerleaders dressed in red and white bouncing around behind the band. Tim thanks everyone, and we set off for the beer tent.

Meet Andy, get free beer, head back to the tent.

Just before our tent is a orange steel drum that is an overspilling bin. Next to the bin is the overspill of bottles and cans and part of a tent.
Five minutes later the tent is removed by someone who wants to use it as a cape to imitate Superman. Doing so reveals a 15-year-old Green Day top wearing lad lying on the rubbish. He is so drunk that he can't move or speak. People pour more rubbish on him, some shine torches at him, others take photos on Robs instructions. The lights seem to have woken him. He moves, he vomits, he lies back down again. Change our interest to the people in the tents next to us who are trying to get one of their lot by feeding him Batchelor's Rum Noodles (cook in 5 minutes, just add rum) He eats them, but is not sick. I see a great site. A security Land Rover drives past, we tell him about Bin-Boy. The Security Man gets out, checks his pulse and announces "He's alive" and drives off.
Ten minutes later two more security people turn up with an ambulance and spend the next half an hour getting him to first sit up, then stand up, then fall over. Then the drag him into the ambulance and cart him off to somewhere probably hospital like.

2:30am Katy falls asleep half outside our tent and half in the door way.
3:20am I decide to retreat to the tent, Rob decides to stay up to see the sun rise even though the sky is covered in clouds.
4:45am Rob gives in on staying up even though sunrise can't be far off.

Sunday

8:00am Wake up after a decent nights sleep for once. The sun is shining bright and I can actually sit out side the tent with just T-shirt and shorts. Have breakfast of cereal bar and a packet of ketchup flavoured crisps.
10:00am Rob wakes up.

11:45am Set off to watch Terris who this year have been upgraded from Evening Session Tent to opening the Main Stage. All bar one of the tracks they play is off their debut album Learning To Let Go.

Walk round all the merchandise stalls to try and buy Pete a Frank Black T-shirt, but non to be found. Rob buys Elbow T-shirt just to rub Petes nose in it. The next two bands on are Public Domain and OPM so make a move back to the tent for lunch of cereal bar and a packet of ketchup flavoured crisps (bit repetitive this festival diet).

1:25pm Weather still glorious so sit outside Carling Tent to listen to Thirteen 13. Have a beer. Can't be bothered to move so stay and listen to Vex Red, though crap. Spot male naked programme seller, which is something nobody should have to see.

2:35pm Move from outside tent to the slope overlooking the Main Stage to watch And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The (living) Dead. First song lasts for over ten minutes. Rob falls asleep.

3:15 Rob wakes up. He's hungry so off to chip van for rip-off priced chips. Rob covers chips with the entire salt content of the Dead Sea.

Sit outside Evening Session Tent eating Robs chips as they're too salty for Rob whilst listening to Guided By Voices. Then move into the tent to watch Gorkys Zygotic Mynci (3.40 - 4.20) and then following them, Elbow (4.40 - 5.25) Gorkys play new stuff and old including a storming version of Poodle Rocking. They're much better than on the open expanse of the main stage like list year.

Elbow - get about four from the front, and the tent is packed. What a difference a year makes.
Only disappointment is the version of Powder Blue is not the reggae one we were treated to at the Leeds CD signing. The rest of the set is fantastic, Newborn goes on for ever, and its still not long enough. Its only stopped by all the emotions is possible to have being displayed on his face simultaneously as he rock back and forth singing

"Scream in the night
Kick and strike
Like a newborn
Holding me shaking
Awake in the dark
All of these promises
Kept and unbroken
Tracing the scars
Tracing the scars
Even and cold…"

Amongst others play Scatter Black & White, Don't Mix Your Drinks, Bitten By The Tail-fly and Any Day Now.

Elbow - No one 'Asleep in the back' of this tent

5:30pm Leave tent feeling blown away. Only way to top that is to buy a mexican. Probably the only decent food eaten all weekend.

5:50pm Meet Damo and friends at top of Main Stage Slope to watch Feeder whist talking to try and drowned them out. Spot a man trying to steal a ladder! Sing along to one song - the one that goes: I've got a brand new car, Its a mini coopah, Its got leather seats and a tape player, player.

6:30pm Leave Feeder as temperature is cooling to go back to tent to get coats and back in time to watch Supergrass.

7:00pm Watch Supergrass, play stuff like Mary, Caught By the Fuzz, Allright and new stuff even though the monitors are not working. Glad we went back for coats because as the sun sets the temperature really drops.

8:10pm Still at the Main Stage watch Fun Lovin' Criminals and bump into Nick and Katka. Rob goes for a drink of Strongbow cider. Huey dedicates Scooby Snacks to the security guard that kicked him off Temple Newsam House earlier. The crowd of 60k people stretching as far as the eye can see bounce and sing along. They also play Barry White but it sound more like Garry White?

9:30pm Meet up with the rest of our camping group. The Manic Street Preachers enter onto the stage with an intro video from Carl Marx. Rob says that if they play any stuff off the last album then he's going to cover eyes and ears. They play Found That Soul and he doesn't, as that song does not count. They play Kevin Carter, but with guitars instead of trumpet, it doesn't sound as good. Highlight is the segway from Van Halan's Jump into Mowtown Junk. Sean looks like a french farmer.

11:00pm No Andy in beer tent so no chance of a free drink so straight back to our tent.

12:00am Things start to turn nasty as about thirty people gather round to intimidate the riot police.

1:00am After seeing live electricity cables pulled down onto tents, and shopping trolleys full of burning rubbish been sent down the camp site. Decide to pack up and leave. Takes about 15 minutes to take down 5 tents in the dark.

Walk through other campsites, and no signs of trouble.

All in all, a great festival, just spoilt by a few idiots that obviously had no regard for other people.

Will we be there next year? Not sure. To find out use the link on the menu.

Now read Rob's version of the weekend.