Leeds Day 4, Part the Second: The First Sign of Madness is Suggs Streaking on the Stage

And the festival continued, though by now both festivalgoers and the site itself were looking more than slightly worn around the edges. Luckily, we had the final shift of the day, so were free to go and see some of the acts. A and I plonked ourselves by the main stage, where we were treated to Seasick Steve, and Madness. Seasick Steve was great, lifting a bottle of Thunderbird wine aloft, pronouncing “Don’t think a grape ever got near any of this shit", then beginning his ode to Thunderbird before being interrupted by a streaker who bore a remarkable resemblance to Suggs from Madness. He began with his modesty protected only by an inflatable ball, before flinging said ball into the audience and dashing offstage again. Seasick Steve smiled into his beard, and continued the song. 

We were later treated to Madness themselves, and the sight of a thousand-odd people nutty-dancing to “Baggy Trousers” was indeed one to behold. The memory sustained us through a long shift. The end shift on the Sunday is always a bit of an experience, as by this point both the drinks and the cash are running out (the bar company reasoning that they may as well run the stocks down, and also that people who are desperate for a drink will buy anything once they’ve fought their way through a 20-minute queue to get to the bar). We slogged our way onward. 

I was hoping for a quiet shift, but it didn’t turn out that way. The bar was absolutely slammed all shift, meaning that the most we saw of the Strokes was a faint background sound of “Last Night” over the hubbub of the crowd demanding pints of lager (and being disappointed). 

Luckily, Pulp made up for it all. Alas, we didn’t get to see as much of them as we’d hoped, but we did hear all the hits. Towards the end, we started visually hinting to people that the bar was closing by the subtle means of dropping the covers down over sections of it, starting at the edges and working inwards. Anyone taking time-lapse photography would have seen the increasingly excited bar staff being slowly squashed into the centre of the bar. The excitement increased in proportion to how well we knew the songs, until by the finale of “Common People”, we were all squashed into a space about fifteen feet wide and jumping up and down like loons. Definitely a festival highlight. 

Our bar manager kindly handed out a few drinks, and with that we were off to see the festival (and eat a stone-baked pizza) one last time. We rejoined C, who’d swapped his shift in order to see “Rise Against”, who were playing in the afternoon. Truth be told, there wasn’t much to see, apart from drunks, so after we’d eaten our pizza and drunk our drinks vouchers, we wended our way slowly homewards to the party in the Village Bar. The drink flowed, the chips were nibbled, and everyone joined in the chorus to “I Wanna Be Sedated”. As we trekked our way across the abandoned campsite the following morning to catch the National Express home, fun had indeed been had, and I’d achieved a small goal of FINALLY seeing Pulp live. A good festival indeed.

Leeds 2011 Day 4: Na Na Na (Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na Na)

Leeds 2006

As we wandered out into the Sunday morning sunshine, reflecting happily on the previous day's fun and digesting the canteen's oddly tasteles porridge, I thought back once more to Leeds 2006. Annoyingly in retrospect, I could have seen My Chemical Romance live for the first time (first time for me that is) at Leeds 2006. It was very shortly after this I really got into them. 

At the time, however, they hadn’t really registered on my radar. As was famously the case, they had to play after Slayer, on the “hard rock” day of the festival. I seem to remember Mastodon were the opening act, followed by Killswitch Engage – after that, it was all just noise to me. (Just checked: the others were Bullet for My Valentine, Less Than Jake, and Taking Back Sunday).

With the exception of Slayer, who were on at the end of our shift; we’d got the 12-6pm on the Friday. I seem to remember thinking “Hey, these guys can actually play!”. I’m old-fashioned; I like my music to have identifiable tunes and words. So did most of the team, and the aural battering we took over the course of the shift, combined with huge queues, malfunctioning MDUs, and a manager who seemed hellbent on off everyone on the bar, and it was one of the least fun shifts I’ve ever done in six years volunteering for the Workers Beer Company. (I seem to remember Killswitch Engage’s frontman yelling “You guys fucking suck!” at the crowd, and thinking “Yeah, we’re thinking that right back at you”.) 

As the end of the shift approached, we sidled to the back of the bar, ready to make a quick exit, and bumped into the team coming on shift. They were staring at the front of the bar, eyes wide in shock.  

We turned to see what they were looking at, and realised that the queues of, black-clad, dirty, tattooed metallers were about ten deep, and they were still coming. When you’re at the front of the bar, you don’t see this. You just appear in front of one customer, get the order, give them the drinks, get the money, go tot the next customer, same thing again, lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseum. At the back of the bar, though, the oncoming hordes were clearly visible. It was like being in Shaun of the Dead without a cricket bat. 

I’d liked to say we muttered some comforting words and patted their shoulders. In reality, it was more like we grinned evilly, muttered “See ya! Wouldn’t wanna be ya!”, grabbed a six-pint holder of cider each (this was before the WBC really cracked down on servers helping themselves to free booze – these days you’d get fired for it, and technically back then we weren’t supposed to do it, but after that shift, I was really not inclined to stop my guys helping themselves to drinks, not least because I badly needed one myself), and scarpered as fast as we could.

We paused briefly to ask each other “Do we want to stay in the main arena?”. The answer was “Nope, can’t take any more of this racket”, and we skittled off in search of the NME tent and better music. And that is the tale of How I Didn’t See My Chemical Romance At Leeds 2006.

Leeds Festival, Day 3, Part the Second: Let's Watch This World Explode

We headed in search of food. Specifically, a stonebaked pizza. There was a huge queue, which is always the way. The only van that doesn't have a huge queue is the "Goodness Gracious Healthy Foods" vegan stall. Here, all was chaos and order as people with flour in their hair ran around throwing dough about and yoicking pizzas in and out of ovens. I ordered one with butternut squash on, and it was delicious.

With time to kill, I joined A in seeing Noah and the Whale - the deal being that I saw them with her, and she saw My Chemical Romance with me. I'd never seen them before and was curious. And they were very, very good. The turnout was fantastic. We were stood near the back, behind two men with matching Bert-and-Ernie-from-Sesame-Street hats, but it did look like the band were thrilled by the crowd, and made every effort to give them a good time. We jumped up and down, we sang along to "Bohemian Rhapsody", and I'd discovered a new band.

From the new to the old, as it were; it's somewhat of a surprise to think that My Chemical Romance have been around for ten years. (Possibly not as much of a surprise as it may be for the band, given their previous personal histories.) Leeds and Reading, famously, were when they were bottled by angry Slayer fans. (Gerard Way's take on it: "So I come on stage, I have white hair, I look like a super creep, everything about me screams 'Throw piss at me'...".) They swore that they would not return unless they were headlining, and four years on, here they were, and here was I. Having missed them in 2007, I would have been deeply, deeply, irritated if it had happened again, but it hadn't. And, even better, it wasn't bloody raining.

I had that faint nervousness I usually get around watching My Chemical Romance live, although I was distracted by 30 Seconds To Mars's final show, in which the audience were invited to invade the stage, and did so with gusto, screaming along to a song the name of which I do not know. Gotta say they don't grab me. All was silent... and then, BANG, My Chem were onstage and I forgot all nervousness and tiredness, and prepared to be entertained.

And boy, were we entertained. C, A and I jumped up and down until we spilled our drinks. I have never seen a band give so much to one performance, with the possible exception of Blur at Glastonbury 2009. You could see in their eyes "We are headlining, and fuck it, we will demonstrate that we have got what it takes". (What they didn't have was Brian May, who only showed for Reading, but frankly I didn't care.) A asked wryly if Gerard Way's hair was really that colour. (Me: "The colour depends on what album they're promoting at the time".) It was a brilliant, brilliant gig. The only very minor thing I would have changed is the absence of "Bulletproof Heart", which is probably my favourite My Chem song, but you can't have it all.

Back to the WBC village, still riding the high, and we joined in the late-night party in the bar. I drank slightly too much, learned the words to "I Wanna Be Sedated" by the Ramones, and we had a great time. One day left, and so far it had been brilliant. Could Pulp knock it out of the park for the trifecta? We could only wait and see!

Leeds Festival Day 3, Part the First: Real Blues and Fake Amy Winehouse

And action. Come Saturday morning, we headed back out in search of breakfast and music, before our midday to 6pm shift kicked off. The catering team were doing sterling work. I told them this. I make a point of doing so each festival; they always look so grateful. Shame they couldn't have made the porridge taste of something - you had to douse it liberally in dried fruit and maple syrup to achieve edibility - but there's a limit to what even miracle-workers can do.

C and A were still ribbing me about last night, when I'd mentioned that I was drinking red wine in tribute to Matt Bellamy, whose favourite drink it is. I maintained that: "Fandom is happening to read an interview in a magazine where he mentioned he likes red wine. Stalkerdom is where you try to find out what sort of wine it was and buy it". (Also, I really like red wine, and find it pleasantly warming at festivals. It also lubricates the creative processes, which is why I'm drinking it, right now.)

C had headed off to meet his mates, who were attending the festival as ordinary folks, leaving A and I to see what was happening. Fortunately, the mud was rapidly drying, and with the festival in full swing, there was music. We headed in the direction of one of the big tents (can't remember if it was the BBC Radio 1 or NME tent, don't care enough to look it up) to experience the delights of "Pulled Apart By Horses", heard what sounded like ten minutes of non-stop screaming emitting from it, and just as swiftly did an about-face and headed in the direction of the other big tent to see a blues band called "She Keeps Bees". This proved to be an up-and-coming American bluesy rock bank, fronted by a down-to-earth woman with blond hair, a demin shirt, and a guitar. Since she could sing, we enjoyed it. (I'm sure "Pulled Apart By Horses" are great, if you're into that sort of thing. I just prefer singing to screaming.)

Alas, good things must end, and bar shifts must begin. We yomped off in search of our bar, stopping on the way to buy a souvenir T-shirt for a friend of A's, a good-natured young lad who apparently once had a bad experience at Leeds involving ketamine. We found a suitable souvenir saying "Ketamine: Just Say Neigh". I pondered buying one, then remembered my rule about not buying stuff at festivals, and joined A on the yomp to the bar.

The bar shift was not too bad. Yet again I must praise the hard work of the other servers and the bar management, who were excellent. Things weren't too bad; busy, but not unmanageable. My nightmare is that I'll accidentally serve someone underage and get fined £80. So far it hasn't happened. Thank God, this year Leeds had decided to give people the option of buying a pink "I'm over 18" wristband for a few quid, which made life infinitely simpler for them and us. We were also visited by two men who apparently felt the need to pay tribute to Amy Winehouse, which made a refreshing change from the legions of students wandering around in full-length cow or horse outfits. I was so impressed I took a picture.

Between that, the odd fifteen minutes here and there spent listening to the acts on the main stage (nothing you'd want to write home about) and the odd break at the back of the bar, the shift passed pleasantly. I say pleasantly. Our bar was near the "fairground" area of the bar, meaning that all breaks were punctuated every minute by a giant fairground ride whirling overhead to the accompaniment of frenzied screaming. (Watching the ride to see which of us could spot the most terrified face on it soon became a favourite pastime among off-duty bar staff.) For some reason, they didn't insist that people take their shoes off before going on the ride, meaning the breaks were spiced with the low-level concern that at any minute a welly might fly off and wang you in the head. It didn't happen, I'm pleased to report.

We survived our six hours without £80 fines or being hit by flying Wellingtons, collected our drinks tokens, and escaped. I was really happy with how the festival was going - C, A and I were getting along just fine! We had a couple of hours to kill before My Chemical Romance hit the main stage, so there was only one thing for it.

Have a stonebaked pizza, and go and see Noah and the Whale. Of whom more later...

Leeds, Day 2, Part the Third: Soylent Green and Giant Tuning Forks

And now it was Muse's turn to dazzle. Oh, how we looked forward to it. I'd strolled past the stage being tested the day before, and taken some rather blurry photos of giant tuning forks, instantly recognisable to any Muse fan as the image from the CD cover of "Origin of Symmetry", which Muse intended to play in its entirety. This split opinion. Some thought it brave, others pointed out that their most famous tracks ("Hysteria", "Supermassive Black Hole", "Stockholm Syndrome") are from albums 3 and 4 and no-one apart from die-hards can remember what "Screenager" or "Hyper Music" sound like.

Personally I was in favour of it, on the grounds that a band that just gives people what they want is a band doomed to achieve little more in future. Also, let's face it, when you can sell out Wembley Stadium, you're allowed to do things because you can, which I suspect was the logic here (that, and it's ten years since "Origin" came out). I was looking forward to it, even if it did mean that I'd have to stand through "Screenager". I don't hate it as much as a friend of mine hates "I Belong To You" (from "The Resistance"), but it's not my favourite.

We passed the drinks and nibbles around, and chuckled with amusement as "What's He Building In There?" played over the speakers (I later learned this used to be how Muse used to open their gigs) and then, with a roar of sound and a light show, Muse were on stage, and "Newborn"'s opening chords blasted out over the crowd. Instant hysteria, appropriately enough. (Yes, I know that's a cliche.)

It was a good gig, although the crowd was obviously split between the diehards who were lapping up "Citizen Erased" (probably the most Muse of all Muse songs) and those who had turned up hoping for a mosh to "Hysteria" and "Time Is Running Out" and who were standing around looking confused. You could also feel the sigh of relief from the latter as the opening riff from "Plug In Baby" screeched over their heads, and it carried over into "Citizen Erased". Even "Screenager" wasn't too bad, as it was thoughtfully illustrated with a rather amusing cartoon strip, basically the plot of "Soylent Green" in four minutes done in the style of 1950s cereal adverts. And I did enjoy "Darkshines", always a favourite of mine.

After "Feeling Good" finished, it was straight into the mosh, with the old favourites causing everyone to jump up and down and forget about the mud. (A asked me "Is it me, or can you not understand a word he's saying?" after every time Matt Bellamy opened his mouth - not unfairly, I've never heard anyone so eager to finish talking to the audience and get straight back into throttling a guitar - the contrast with Guy Garvey couldn't be much bigger!) Definitely more of a gig for the fans, then, but a great one.

Leeds Day Two, Part the Second: Whacking the Hell Out of a Snare Drum

And we ate quickly, then returned to the Main Stage to enjoy Elbow and Muse. Let me say that again. Elbow and Muse. I like saying that. Two of my favourite bands in one sentence. Elbow and Muse. (Okay, I'll stop now.)


I was slightly... well, apprehensive is over-stating it, since I really think Guy Garvey's charm has taken on the power of a force of nature, but I was interested, let's say, to see how Elbow would cope with the Leeds crowd, particularly that part of it which had been hanging around in the mud for hours in the hope of getting prime position for Muse. I need not have worried, since their patented opener of ambling on stage, fag in mouth, pint glass raised aloft, is usually guaranteed to win the crowd. (I'm reminded of the tale of the journalist who went to interview Elbow in a pub before a gig, and ended up staying there with them for most of the afternoon. Towards the end, he looked at his watch and muttered "Bloody hell, aren't you on in an hour?" The band nodded and made to leave. Catching his stare at the table littered with empties, Garvey apparently looked at him, winked and replied "Don't worry - we haven't gone on stage sober in 16 years".)


If anything, Elbow were probably what the crowd really needed, even if they didn't know it. I'd read an interview before hand in which Guy Garvey stated they were going to "do the cheesy festival stuff", and there was certainly plenty of "this section of the crowd, cheer loudly... now this section cheer EVEN LOUDER... now let's all wave our hands in the air", but this was no bad thing given the risk of incipient hypothermia. Also, Elbow these days have The Songs. Everyone knows "One Day Like This", which may well be one of the best closing tunes ever, in my entirely biased opinion, but "Neat Little Rows" and "Grounds for Divorce" are bloody good, especially with the light show going off at full blast behind them and Garvey whacking the hell out of a snare drum.


Appropriately enough, though, given that it's the song Elbow fought to play live on the BBC after winning the Mercury, "The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver" was The Moment. You don't tend to hear about "Leeds Moments" in the same way as "Glastonbury Moments" (or "Reading Moments" either - funny how being at Leeds makes you feel like the poor relation), but this was it. It is still the song that gets me every time when I listen to "Seldom Seen Kid", and I swear I saw the entire crowd at Leeds staring open-mouthed at the stage, temporarily transported by the sheer force of emotion coming from the stage. After that (and this is not a sentence I type often), Muse had a hard act to follow. Next time...

Leeds Day 1, Part the Third: The View From Up Here

Again, my team bravely faced the Demons of Poor Organisation and Poor Timekeeping. Yup, we ended up as the only team on the bar. Three of us in one of the busiest bars on site. All credit to the bar management, who pitched in with a will, but we stayed on for two extra hours, and the team supposed to be relieving us failed to turn up despite the manager’s increasingly desperate radios to the site office.

After two extra and highly frantic hours, we’d finally had enough and left the unfortunate bar management staff to cope. There’s a limit to how long you can keep going on your feet with no break and no food. We reached ours, and left in search of food, which we found in the form of a Thai curry in the main arena. I’m usually good at truffling out the food stalls on site that make food out of actual ingredients, and my nose had not deserted me.

A curry and a pint later, we roamed throughout the site, vaguely intending to get into the Silent Disco tent, but the massive queue put us off. A and C headed for the Beer Company bar, and I took a ride on the Ferris Wheel, which I’ve always rather wanted to do. We rendez-voused for a quick pint and check of the weather forecast on C’s smartphone (not promising), then fell into our tents and fell asleep.

Leeds Day 1, Part the Second: Die, Stripy Bastards, Die

We strolled off the coach, attached our backpacks to ourselves, and staggered off in search of the WBC person who was handing out the badges and directions. Having acquired both, we yomped off across the site to the WBC camping village. As is the inevitable way of these things, it was at the other end of the site. By the time we’d got there, my shoulders felt they had fused together in the middle.

Fortunately, the sun was out, the grass was dry, and it was perfect tent-putting-up weather. We carefully selected a spot based on my past experience (“Not too near the bar because it’s always noisy, not too far away from the toilets or we’ll have long walks in the middle of the night, not too near the toilets or it’ll stink by Saturday and everyone will fall over our tents in the middle of the night”). We chose to volunteer for an extra bar shift in the Campsite Bar, and set off to acquire some lunch and explore the site prior to our shift.

Leeds hadn’t changed too much from what I remember in 2006, although sadly our campsite back in those days was much nearer the coach park! We ate pizza for lunch at what I’m pretty sure was the same pizza stall I ate my first lunch at at my first Leeds festival. (If I can remember this, how come I can’t remember where I hid the spare shed key last year?) The sun was out, the crowds were roaming, and the site was not yet covered in litter.

It may be apparent that my love for Leeds is somewhat less than my love for Glastonbury. This is largely due to the fact that frankly, I find Leeds a bit boring during the day. At Glastonbury, there is always something interesting or strange happening somewhere. At Leeds, it’s all about the bands and the alcohol, which is great in principle, but a bit dull in practice unless you get lucky and find lots of bands you like.


(Actually, for many people it’s also all about the drugs, the sex in tents and the fights, with added possibility of setting fire to stuff at the end. For us, the first isn’t our thing, the second would have required our other halves to be present, the third was unlikely to happen unless someone really kicked off behind the bar, and the fourth was unlikely to happen unless it got really cold!) This is particularly an issue if, like us, you can’t drink much during the day due to having to stay sober for your bar shifts.

As 5pm rolled around, we headed to the Campsite bar for our first shift. It is a source of some amusement to me that the WBC makes (rightly) a big fuss about briefing its teams, but that at least half the teams I’ve taken to festivals over the years have done their first shift (ever) with no briefing at all, since we always volunteer for the extra-day shifts. This was no exception.

Luckily, both C and A displayed unflappable calm, and got the hang of it with great speed. Although there was some flapping, as the hot weather and the sticky spilled drinks attracted every wasp in a 5-mile radius. We had some quite effective wasp traps, but most of us got stung at least once. I’m normally a peaceful human being, but by the end of the shift, I was standing in front of the wasp traps watching the little buggers flap their last in stale Irn-Bru and shrieking “Die, stripy bastards, die!”

Ah yes, the end of the shift. There’s a tale….