Week Commencing: 12/7/04
By: Toby L
And just when you think you've seen it all. I'm absolutely f**king knackered. Myself and an outsider friend of rockfeedback have just returned from Scotland following the weekend's T In The Park festival.
Now, there's a few things we want to confirm/dispel about T. As follows.
1) The Scots are the rowdiest, most unruly bunch of alcoholics the world has to offer;
2) The Scots are the friendliest and most overtly enthusiastic/passionate of music-fans rockfeedback has ever encountered (because of the above?);
3) T In The Park is both technically and atmospherically the best of the UK's outdoor music festivals;
4) It'll leave you with a stupidly bewildering hangover (if you enjoy yourself properly, and indulge in the sickening barrage of Buckfast tonic wine that is located at every turn).
And, also, it's the bearer of the most consistently diverse, fulfilling and - simply - strongest line-up you'll see anywhere.
Take Keane and Franz Ferdinand - currently two of the UK's most successful, best-selling and most-talked-about acts - they were onstage socking it to us before it even got dark (both acts achieving stupidly mammoth audiences, FF particularly, whose Main Stage set was a moving, euphoric homecoming).
That's let alone the double-whammy pairing of The Strokes and Pixies which closed the weekend; the former featured Julian and co's finest performance to date in many's eyes - a dramatic, emotional opening consisted of 'Reptilia', 'Someday' and 'Last Nite': it does not get any better - while the latter were dazzling in their hour and ten display... 22 songs, a plethora of classics ('Wave Of Mutilation'; 'Debaser'; 'Where Is My Mind?'; 'Caribou'; an opening 'Planet Of Sound') and a scintillating close in the guitar-thrashing, screeching 'Vamos'. Let alone the 60,000-strong audience sing-along to 'Monkey Gone To Heaven'. We almost fainted with joy.
There was drama and blood on the tracks, too. The first night closed on the second stage with a re-energised Libertines opening and closing with new songs, and sounding f**king devastatingly taut and intense. Only a shame Peter Doherty couldn't be there to aid on the rampant 'Last Post On The Bugle', new single 'Can't Stand Me Now' and 'Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?', because they all sound like the band's finest matter to date. Then followed Muse. Then followed genius. Thousands jumped in furious elation to a pairing of 'Time Is Running Out' and 'Plug-In Baby', while the entrance of 'Hysteria', 'New Born', 'Sing For Absolution' and 'Muscle Museum' may have mirrored their recent Glastonbury headline triumph, but the sheer deafening reception multiplied that prior successful weekend's efforts tenfold.
We even took in some new bands - The Killers' bow-out with 'Mr Brightside' and upcoming 45 'All These Things That I've Done' was chillingly anthemic; Gordon Raphael's Black-Light turned in a psychedelic waltz of magnanimous, whirling wonder - particularly within epic staple set-closer 'The Lifeboat' and pummelling Iggy rocker 'Traveller'; and Goldie Lookin' Chain were hilarious as Sunday's Main Stage openers, wowing us with the rave-hop joy of 'Your Mother's Got A Penis'.
Best of all as discoveries, however, must have been Nine Black Alps - a group unfortunately granted the equivalent of a local-FM graveyard radio slot: their showing in the comfortably intimate, yet unattended, X Tent was a direct clash with the Main Stage ravaging prompted by a certain act's appearance; frontman Sam Forrest (fitting surname - his hair is a mass of wiry locks) proclaimed, 'I'll have yer, Franz Ferdinand.' Their half-hour of linear and aggressive grandiose-grunge/introspective musings was both ragged and compelling - fronted by hair and a voice that'd make you quiver at the knees. But it wasn't all abrupt, turgid workings - in the compelling Interpol expanse of 'I'm Satisfied', NBA proved their potential crossover zeal was something that'll enrapture and enclose muso-aficionados across the board throughout 2005. Shame you weren't there to see it. You will be.
So, dazed and exhausted, we're back to reality-ish. A regular Weekly Editorial shall return next week with all the regulars. But, for now, we're signing off with the strictest of advice that you purchase spots to next year's event in the bonny highlands - for the first time ever, tickets are on-sale now, pre-line-up announcement, for the hardcores to gain entry early. Click here for more details. You know it makes complete sense.