Got back from Leeds Festival '08 2 hours ago.
The festival had it's ups and downs, but all in all it was an amasing weekend.
Arrived at Braham Park on Wednesday morning around 11am. Spent about 20 minutes driving up a muddy slope to the wrong car park (a staff member was leading everyone to the further carpark, even though all of us specifically got day earliy tickets to park in the closer one). By then, it was too late and it would have taken us longer to get out of the car park and re-park, so we made do and joined the queue to get into the campsite.
After 2 hours of getting to know people and mild drinking a member of staff opened the doors to let a colleague out, and the doors were rushed and any sort of queuing system went to hell. But we got quite far up from the ruckus.
And it turns out, me and Dez are so incredibly hard to understand that it's cool. <3 Glasgow.
When we got in, we settled at Blue Valley Camping instead of the original plan of White/Yellow Camping, why i do not know, but i am honestly glad we did.
http://media.livenation.co.uk/fido/publishing/news/s/t/u/Leeds08%20sitemap%2014.8.pdf
After setting up camp, getting to know people, getting a burger and more drinking, we went back to the cars to get the rest of the alcohol food and sugar related products. The way back to the campsite from the car park was one of the hardest hikes i've ever had to do. Between 3 of us, there were around 4 crates of beer, a crate of water, and multiple crates of sweets and crisps with some miscellaneous items. But we made it, celebrated with more drinking and went to sleep.
It had rained very heavily that night, for a long time. The morning greeted us with mud puddles and since the normal weekend tickets allow entry on the Thursday morning, by Thursday Afternoon, it had taken a very bad turn Glasto style.
Morning
http://www.malakim.org/stuff/leeds/21082008371.jpg
Afternoon
http://www.malakim.org/stuff/leeds/21082008372.jpg
Wellies are 15 pounds each and i cursed myself many times for forgetting to bring mine, but they were the best investment i made all weekend. That night i got stupidly drunk by making Diesel (Lager, Cider, Blackcurrant) in buckets and with 5 of us using 3foot comedy straws and drinking till it was late enough to start a fire.
Come Friday morning, i was feeling rough and the bands were due to start playing that day. The time table of bands was such that Slipknot played the same time as Pendulum, both of whom i wanted to see. But it turns out Joey Jordinson of Slipknot (Drummer) broke his ankle and they had to cancel at both Reading and Leeds festivals. So my Bandlist for the day was; Mindless Self Indulgence, Alexisonfire, Dropkick Murphys, Avenged Sevenfold, Pendulum, Tenacious D, Metallica.
MSI sucked. Lead singer threw his microphone away because he was clearly wasted and thought there was a motorway called L62.
Alexisonfire were absolutely amasing. They played amasing songs from both albums, sounding almost exactly the same as the recorded track with touches of their own greatness. Needless to say, i screamed every single song with slight moshing.
Just before Alexisonfire
http://www.malakim.org/stuff/leeds/22082008374.jpg
Dropkick Murphys were great. At the same moment, a plane flying a sign that read "SLIPKNOT TOURING UK TICKETS ON SALE 27/08" and Murphys ripped the piss out of them. Though when they started playing, it was clear that the stage technicians at Leeds are absolutely retarded, or amateurs who don't know how to work a stage. As the microphone for the lead singer of Dropkick Murphys was too low, and at the end, a female singer came to sing the closing song of the set and her microphone wasn't even on for the first 12 seconds. Nonetheless, they were really impressive live.
Avenged Sevenfold were a mixed blessing, they came on played one song, and announced 3 members of the group had contracted the flu virus and could barely play. But then, M. Shadows decided to play A Little Piece of Heaven and asked a random girl from the crowd to sing with them! It was amasingly funny, nerve racking and exciting. She did very well and everyone cheered her on. After the song, they called it a day and went off. Avenged Sevenfold only played 1 and a half songs, but at least they had the courtesy to show and make a remote effort.
http://www.malakim.org/stuff/leeds/22082008375.jpg
My video is pretty bad quality, this is a better one
Ending early, me and my friend Dez went to the NME/Radio 1 tent to see Pendulum, we also got to see The Music for a while and they were pretty good considering i didn't know any of their songs.
Pendulum were insane, definately one of the best bands i saw over the weekend. Absolutely packed crazy crowd jumping to the beat. And a few circle pits in which i participated in until i accidentally knocked over a 4 foot girl, she was fine but i just took it mild for the rest of the show after that. Dripping with sweat and adrenaline, we got some disgusting english tap water ( GOGO SCOTTISH TAP WATER = <3) and headed over to the main stage.
Tenacious D. Great live. Funny, crowd pleasing, amasing performers and took into account that they were opening for Metallica and made some awesome jokes that broke into songs.
http://www.malakim.org/stuff/leeds/22082008376.jpg
Metallica. Absolutely skilled in the art of music. The crowd was HUGE, the stage was elevated, big screen turned on. But in my opinon it droned on for too long. They played too many new songs instead of the old classics. Though it was a once in a lifetime oppurtunity and i'm glad i got to see them.
After standing, dancing, moshing for 9 hours straight, i passed out in my tent.
Saturday morning. Anti-flag, Get Cape. wear Cape. Fly, Taking Back Sunday, Queens of The Stone Age, Rage Against The Machine.
Anti-Flag is quite underground band in my personal opinion since they are really anti-government and rarely broadcast on Music Channels. But they are hardcore punk and rebellious. And they were AMASING. They worked the crowd so amasingly, that even though there were only a few thousand there, who were probably queuing at the front for bgiger bands, everyone was participating. Great band, great crowd, great time.
http://www.malakim.org/stuff/leeds/23082008377.jpg
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly was actually just a place-holder band for me, since i wanted to see Taking Back Sunday. Get Cape were quite good i think, i'm not really into their music so i can't really put a fair comment there.
Taking Back Sunday should have been amasing. Once again Leeds Stage Technicians come into play, the lead singer for Taking Back Sunday was barely audible AT ALL. And by that i mean, if you were next to him, it'd almost be the same as talking loudly, nevermind a massive main stage. It got so bad, the crowd started chanting "TURN IT UP TURN IT UP TURN IT UP" to no avail. Though they were brilliant live, they played well, they played favourites for songs, the crowd was brilliant (around 12 crowd surfers at 13.30) and i got to chat to a few cool people.
We took a break for the to-be orgasm that is Queens and Rage and went back to the camp site.
Queens of the Stone Age are so talented. The lead singer was absolutely wasted. He had that glare and nausea you get when you've been drinking for the whole day and he managed to play every single song brilliantly with only a couple of almost falls into the keyboards. Great set and show.
Rage Against the Machine were out of this world. About 12 rows from the front, we found 2 Scottish girls who also turned out to be from Glasgow, and during the 30 minutes that Rage was late, we had some great chat. Unluckily though, when Rage came on the stage, everyone got lost in the fray and the whole place was like Omaha Beach. The crowd was so hot, it was raining and evaporating before it got to us. It was so intense, Zack de la Rocha had to tell the crowd to step back because people at the railings were getting physically hurt. Around 20 minutes in, i was dragged into a mosh pit and fell over. After getting back up, i was tackled, knocked off my feet with what felt like a kick to the left shin and eventually got lifted into a crowd surf to be carried to the barrier. Even though i was so far back and a bit annoyed, i enjoyed the show. Especially when they encored with Killing in the Name Of.
In the morning, it turned out i caught a cold, massive bruise on the back of my leg and didn't even want to touch my hair incase i caught something. It was great weather in the morning though, sun shining through overcast. We packed up and headed to the car so we could make a quick exit after seeing bands. Hike back with everything was surprisingly hard, but much lighter with lack of alcohol. We hung around the car and chatted while playing an acoustic guitar for a good 5 hours, it was great fun, good banter and story telling.
I only saw one band that night. Bullet for My Valentine. They were absolutely brilliant. They played great songs, worked the crowd and are amasing live. Unfortunately i had to leave early because my friends wanted to get an early exit. Though i didn't mind, because we escaped pretty quickly.
And that pretty much sums up my weekend. The weather could have been better and i could have been more prepared but it was still one of the best times i've had.
If your wondering for the lack of photos, the video i took wiped out my only phone battery.
And if your reading this, i just realised i wrote an essay. Thanks for reading!
-mala <3
The festival had it's ups and downs, but all in all it was an amasing weekend.
Arrived at Braham Park on Wednesday morning around 11am. Spent about 20 minutes driving up a muddy slope to the wrong car park (a staff member was leading everyone to the further carpark, even though all of us specifically got day earliy tickets to park in the closer one). By then, it was too late and it would have taken us longer to get out of the car park and re-park, so we made do and joined the queue to get into the campsite.
After 2 hours of getting to know people and mild drinking a member of staff opened the doors to let a colleague out, and the doors were rushed and any sort of queuing system went to hell. But we got quite far up from the ruckus.
And it turns out, me and Dez are so incredibly hard to understand that it's cool. <3 Glasgow.
When we got in, we settled at Blue Valley Camping instead of the original plan of White/Yellow Camping, why i do not know, but i am honestly glad we did.
http://media.livenation.co.uk/fido/publishing/news/s/t/u/Leeds08%20sitemap%2014.8.pdf
After setting up camp, getting to know people, getting a burger and more drinking, we went back to the cars to get the rest of the alcohol food and sugar related products. The way back to the campsite from the car park was one of the hardest hikes i've ever had to do. Between 3 of us, there were around 4 crates of beer, a crate of water, and multiple crates of sweets and crisps with some miscellaneous items. But we made it, celebrated with more drinking and went to sleep.
It had rained very heavily that night, for a long time. The morning greeted us with mud puddles and since the normal weekend tickets allow entry on the Thursday morning, by Thursday Afternoon, it had taken a very bad turn Glasto style.
Morning
http://www.malakim.org/stuff/leeds/21082008371.jpg
Afternoon
http://www.malakim.org/stuff/leeds/21082008372.jpg
Wellies are 15 pounds each and i cursed myself many times for forgetting to bring mine, but they were the best investment i made all weekend. That night i got stupidly drunk by making Diesel (Lager, Cider, Blackcurrant) in buckets and with 5 of us using 3foot comedy straws and drinking till it was late enough to start a fire.
Come Friday morning, i was feeling rough and the bands were due to start playing that day. The time table of bands was such that Slipknot played the same time as Pendulum, both of whom i wanted to see. But it turns out Joey Jordinson of Slipknot (Drummer) broke his ankle and they had to cancel at both Reading and Leeds festivals. So my Bandlist for the day was; Mindless Self Indulgence, Alexisonfire, Dropkick Murphys, Avenged Sevenfold, Pendulum, Tenacious D, Metallica.
MSI sucked. Lead singer threw his microphone away because he was clearly wasted and thought there was a motorway called L62.
Alexisonfire were absolutely amasing. They played amasing songs from both albums, sounding almost exactly the same as the recorded track with touches of their own greatness. Needless to say, i screamed every single song with slight moshing.
Just before Alexisonfire
http://www.malakim.org/stuff/leeds/22082008374.jpg
Dropkick Murphys were great. At the same moment, a plane flying a sign that read "SLIPKNOT TOURING UK TICKETS ON SALE 27/08" and Murphys ripped the piss out of them. Though when they started playing, it was clear that the stage technicians at Leeds are absolutely retarded, or amateurs who don't know how to work a stage. As the microphone for the lead singer of Dropkick Murphys was too low, and at the end, a female singer came to sing the closing song of the set and her microphone wasn't even on for the first 12 seconds. Nonetheless, they were really impressive live.
Avenged Sevenfold were a mixed blessing, they came on played one song, and announced 3 members of the group had contracted the flu virus and could barely play. But then, M. Shadows decided to play A Little Piece of Heaven and asked a random girl from the crowd to sing with them! It was amasingly funny, nerve racking and exciting. She did very well and everyone cheered her on. After the song, they called it a day and went off. Avenged Sevenfold only played 1 and a half songs, but at least they had the courtesy to show and make a remote effort.
http://www.malakim.org/stuff/leeds/22082008375.jpg
My video is pretty bad quality, this is a better one
Ending early, me and my friend Dez went to the NME/Radio 1 tent to see Pendulum, we also got to see The Music for a while and they were pretty good considering i didn't know any of their songs.
Pendulum were insane, definately one of the best bands i saw over the weekend. Absolutely packed crazy crowd jumping to the beat. And a few circle pits in which i participated in until i accidentally knocked over a 4 foot girl, she was fine but i just took it mild for the rest of the show after that. Dripping with sweat and adrenaline, we got some disgusting english tap water ( GOGO SCOTTISH TAP WATER = <3) and headed over to the main stage.
Tenacious D. Great live. Funny, crowd pleasing, amasing performers and took into account that they were opening for Metallica and made some awesome jokes that broke into songs.
http://www.malakim.org/stuff/leeds/22082008376.jpg
Metallica. Absolutely skilled in the art of music. The crowd was HUGE, the stage was elevated, big screen turned on. But in my opinon it droned on for too long. They played too many new songs instead of the old classics. Though it was a once in a lifetime oppurtunity and i'm glad i got to see them.
After standing, dancing, moshing for 9 hours straight, i passed out in my tent.
Saturday morning. Anti-flag, Get Cape. wear Cape. Fly, Taking Back Sunday, Queens of The Stone Age, Rage Against The Machine.
Anti-Flag is quite underground band in my personal opinion since they are really anti-government and rarely broadcast on Music Channels. But they are hardcore punk and rebellious. And they were AMASING. They worked the crowd so amasingly, that even though there were only a few thousand there, who were probably queuing at the front for bgiger bands, everyone was participating. Great band, great crowd, great time.
http://www.malakim.org/stuff/leeds/23082008377.jpg
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly was actually just a place-holder band for me, since i wanted to see Taking Back Sunday. Get Cape were quite good i think, i'm not really into their music so i can't really put a fair comment there.
Taking Back Sunday should have been amasing. Once again Leeds Stage Technicians come into play, the lead singer for Taking Back Sunday was barely audible AT ALL. And by that i mean, if you were next to him, it'd almost be the same as talking loudly, nevermind a massive main stage. It got so bad, the crowd started chanting "TURN IT UP TURN IT UP TURN IT UP" to no avail. Though they were brilliant live, they played well, they played favourites for songs, the crowd was brilliant (around 12 crowd surfers at 13.30) and i got to chat to a few cool people.
We took a break for the to-be orgasm that is Queens and Rage and went back to the camp site.
Queens of the Stone Age are so talented. The lead singer was absolutely wasted. He had that glare and nausea you get when you've been drinking for the whole day and he managed to play every single song brilliantly with only a couple of almost falls into the keyboards. Great set and show.
Rage Against the Machine were out of this world. About 12 rows from the front, we found 2 Scottish girls who also turned out to be from Glasgow, and during the 30 minutes that Rage was late, we had some great chat. Unluckily though, when Rage came on the stage, everyone got lost in the fray and the whole place was like Omaha Beach. The crowd was so hot, it was raining and evaporating before it got to us. It was so intense, Zack de la Rocha had to tell the crowd to step back because people at the railings were getting physically hurt. Around 20 minutes in, i was dragged into a mosh pit and fell over. After getting back up, i was tackled, knocked off my feet with what felt like a kick to the left shin and eventually got lifted into a crowd surf to be carried to the barrier. Even though i was so far back and a bit annoyed, i enjoyed the show. Especially when they encored with Killing in the Name Of.
In the morning, it turned out i caught a cold, massive bruise on the back of my leg and didn't even want to touch my hair incase i caught something. It was great weather in the morning though, sun shining through overcast. We packed up and headed to the car so we could make a quick exit after seeing bands. Hike back with everything was surprisingly hard, but much lighter with lack of alcohol. We hung around the car and chatted while playing an acoustic guitar for a good 5 hours, it was great fun, good banter and story telling.
I only saw one band that night. Bullet for My Valentine. They were absolutely brilliant. They played great songs, worked the crowd and are amasing live. Unfortunately i had to leave early because my friends wanted to get an early exit. Though i didn't mind, because we escaped pretty quickly.
And that pretty much sums up my weekend. The weather could have been better and i could have been more prepared but it was still one of the best times i've had.
If your wondering for the lack of photos, the video i took wiped out my only phone battery.
And if your reading this, i just realised i wrote an essay. Thanks for reading!
-mala <3
glad you had an awesome time man