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Leeds Carling Festival
24.8.03 Bramham Park
Yet another year and yet
another resolution not to do the festival thing broken again. What's a man
to do: a sunny bank holiday, no plans made and a rare opportunity for the
tastyzine web geek to actually see some live music? Get yourself down to
Bramham Park son! Which is easier said than done...
Despite the stewards not
actually knowing where the festival was, arrival was relatively harmless and
the bizarre experience of a dry
festival site beckoned.
Carefully side-stepping the shocking-looking fairground rides (and that's
just the dodgems), tasty's intrepid reporter made like all good journalists,
straight to the beer tent. Once the initial shock of another £3 pint had
worn off it was time for some hardcore music watching.
At least it would have been if
there had been anything worth watching for the first few hours...I've never
seen such a poor afternoon line up for a festival. Too many bands
concentrating on adding 'The' to their name and not on making decent music
as my old man would have said. With the sparkling exception of The Rapture
who are forgiven for their love affair with the definite article. This
bizarre bunch from San Francisco were absolutely fab, switching between
electro pop, hardcore punk and emo with spooky ease. Sulky looking bunch
though...
But why sit in a tent in the
dark all day when you could be getting sun burnt to within an inch of your
life outside? So a tactical retreat to the main stage followed just in time
to catch the Doves. Not bad but more suited to a rainy afternoon in Salford
than a sunny bank holiday - talk about lack of stage charisma. Not a
criticism which could be levelled at Beck who once again pulled a storming
set in Leeds. All the classics from Odelay were there to get even my beer
sodden trainers moving.
Then a bizarre bit of festival
programming - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Don't get me wrong, I like a bit
of BRMC as much as the next man. But it was just a bit of a let down after
the Beckster. Fortunately Blur were on hand to bring things round. they're
one of these bands who I've always wanted to hate but end buying their
records anyway. Even Mr Albarn seemed to be enjoying himself -some feat
these days. It was good to see Phil Daniels doing his stuff on a couple of
tracks during the encore and almost made up for the lack of talent earlier
in the day. But then I was a bit pissed by the time I saw Blur...
Cheers to the lovely ladies
who gave us a lift at the start of the day and saved us from death by dust.
Shane
Blanchard  |
