Leeds Festival 2010

Every year I swear that I’ll never attend Leeds Festival again. Last year, with my eyes and lungs burning from the acrid fumes of burning tents, I really meant it. But then the opportunity to work behind one of the bars arose and I decided to see if things on the other side of the fence made it a more pleasurable experience...

It was with utter dismay that I realised my shifts (three six-hour stints of charging extortionate prices for pre-poured pints) were scheduled to coincide with almost every band I was interested in going to see. All of a sudden the free ticket didn’t seem such good value. But with free meals, free drinks and splendid camping facilities it would be churlish to complain. We plastered brave faces on and amended our plans, bouncing into the sun-drenched arena for a Friday afternoon of cider and song.

I imagine it can be a thankless task opening a festival. Playing to fans that aren’t necessarily your own must be fraught with difficulty and the contrasting sets from The Futureheads and the Mystery Jets were testament to this. With their catchy choruses, bouncing rhythms and singalong anthems, The Futureheads were an excellent advertisement for themselves – they’ll have won themselves some new fans and deservedly so. The Mystery Jets, on the other hand, arrived looking sullen and subdued. They threw away their biggest hit, Two Doors Down, midway through the set and with it went the crowd. It’s a shame as they brightened up slightly with a bouncy rendition of Behind The Bunhouse, but it was too little, too late. The Futureheads saved Hounds of Love for last, kept the crowd onside and sparked debate amongst my friends about whether anyone could even remember Kate Bush’s original version of the song.

After the Gaslight Anthem powered through their back catalogue (with some aplomb) Modest Mouse were the first victims of the weather as a torrential downpour sent the crowd scurrying for shelter. Luckily the weather perked up in time for the arrival of The Maccabees. Playing their first ever slot on a festival main stage they delivered a great set of melodic pop which was perfectly suited to a sunny afternoon.

The remainder of the day’s music was witnessed from the wrong side of the bar. Luckily it was the one closest to the main stage and enabled us to catch snippets of Dizzee Rascal and The Libertines, both of whom delivered rollickingly good sets. The real treat for me, however, was sneaking off to watch Arcade Fire as their army of musicians filled the main stage prior to them filling the arena with their unique sound.

Any band with two drummers gets the seal of approval from me, but Arcade Fire go one further by constantly switching instruments between songs – it seems that everyone gets a go at everything and that level of talent is a joy to behold. Their rendition of No Cars Go was absolutely thrilling – the hairs stood up on the back of my neck and stayed erect for the rest of their set. As always, they finished with the epically euphoric Wake Up – a song designed to close a festival if ever there was one.

Saturday was a strange affair. I spent the afternoon trapped behind the bar listening to relentlessly dull American ‘rock’ and sulking badly. The only relief came from an outburst of ska-punk from the reliably raucous King Blues – definitely the only band to pique my interest all day.

Sweet release came after my shift with a set from Shooting Stars’ Angelos Epithemou. In twenty minutes he provided more entertainment than I’d had all day. That this was achieved with a set made up of just three (terrible) jokes, a sweeping brush transformed into a flute and a telescopic blind man’s stick in a bag is testament to the strength of the character.

Band of Horses were my band of the weekend. Combining lush harmonies with lush facial hair, their set was a splendid run through material from all three of their albums. It’s a good job they were visible on stage or the audience might have thought someone had just sneaked a CD of the band on – I’ve rarely heard a group reproduce their studio sound so adeptly. Brilliant stuff from a band who deserve to be much, much bigger.

With no real agenda, the rest of the evening was spent flitting from stage to stage. We Are Scientists provided little of interest except a drummer who looks remarkably (and presumably deliberately) like John Bonham. Caribou were more intriguing: a tightly grouped quartet of musicians who played for each other rather than their audience and yet still managed to hold the attention thanks to their atmospherically laid back sound. There’s something warmly melancholic about them and they’re certainly worth checking out. A brief visit to the Klaxons revealed that little has changed in the years between their first album and last week’s new release Surfing The Void: if you liked them before, you’ll like them now. Unless you’ve matured more quickly than them.

For the first and only time we ventured into the public campsite following the end of Saturday’s on-stage entertainment. Festival Republic have certainly learned their lessons in recent years when it comes to providing late night entertainment and it seems that there was more to keep people occupied in 2010 than ever before. Unfortunately Leeds Festival still lags some way behind in many other respects: the catering is terrible compared to almost every festival I’ve ever been to; the site is homogenous and boring; information about stage times and line-ups can only be bought at extortionate prices. A little more thought about the way the site is laid out, a separate food area serving ‘proper’ grub and a few signs with timetables on would cost very little and contribute greatly.

Another person with a few gripes about Melvin Benn’s handling of the festival is Axl Rose. After throwing his toys out of the pram at Reading, rumours swept Bramham Park that Guns n Roses were not gonna turn up. Ozzy Osbourne and Arctic Monkeys were being touted as replacements and confusion reigned supreme. Sadly, the organisers did little to dispel these rumours and the crowd were left wondering...

Despite an uninspiring afternoon line-up I still managed to miss the only band I wanted to see on Sunday – I was bopping along to Two Door Cinema Club at the NME stage when Gogol Bordello were delivering their gypsy punk to the main stage audience. I was furious with myself and my mood only darkened watching The Big Pink later on – having liked their last album I was astounded that they’d made such an interesting record seem so turgid when performed live.

Later, Mumford & Sons drew the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen at the NME stage. It was impossible to get into the tent and as such the acoustics were dreadful. Quieter songs were drowned out by the nearby dodgems and it was only The Cave and Little Lion Man which got much of a reaction from the hoards of fans. That’s not to say that the band played badly – far from it. But it’s perhaps time to think about introducing an element of flexibility into artist contracts at events such as these. No doubt the group were delighted to have secured the deal they did, but since they signed up to Leeds/Reading their career has gone through the roof and it seems strange to see a band like Phoenix playing after a group who stand on the brink of winning the Mercury Music Prize. It’s fair to assume that one of the two will spend next summer playing on main stages. I’ll leave you to work out which...

Back behind the bar and bitterly cold, we drew our collective breath and waited for the arrival of Guns n Roses. And waited. And then 35 minutes later than billed they made it into the stage. Axl Rose looked like a futuristic version of himself. His bloated face looks increasingly like Mickey Rourke’s, his bacofoil jacket looked like he’d stolen it from George Jetson and his teeth glowed so violently under the UV lights I thought I was caught in the headlights.

With his collection of glorified session musicians behind him Axl launched into his set. Unfortunately, it never really took off. Whether the singer is physically unfit or just determined to allow his new bandmates time to showcase their ability is unclear, but the set repeatedly lost any momentum it had gathered due to Rose’s insistence on changing costume three times in just over ninety minutes. During his enforced absences we were ‘treated’ to instrumental versions of Bowie and Pink Floyd songs and a bizarre version of the Theme From Pink Panther. Whilst there are some decent musicians in the new set-up, it’s difficult to avoid the fact that whenever Axl wasn’t on stage you weren’t actually watching any of the original line-up.

There were some great moments – it’d be a shock if a back catalogue like theirs didn’t contain some gems. Watching Sweet Child O mine from the top of a van-mounted generator gave us the best view in the house of the main stage (and warmed our feet wonderfully) and November Rain made my heart thud in my chest. Sadly a droning version of Knockin On Heaven’s Door almost bored me to death before they encored with Paradise City and stomped off after moaning that they hadn’t been allowed to play for longer. Frankly, I’d had enough by that point and so had Axl’s voice.