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Leeds Festival Blog
16 September 2009
Leeds Leeds Leeds Leeds – ‘You make Reading look like a play pen.’ Ricky from the Kaiser Chiefs.
Take nine ‘slightly crazy’ mates, three tents, an assortment of sausages, burgers, brunch bars, pasties and pies; a picnic table, a bottle of tomato ketchup, enough beer and cider for the entire population of Andorra and several packets of Alka-Seltzer. Throw into the mix a mountain of wellys, copious amounts of wet wipes and more fire wood than you could shake a festival stick at, and you’ve get one hell of a storm in a tea cup… Did someone say Shotgun?
Enough about that though, lets talk about the music. This year Leeds Festival had a stella line-up, but headline slots from Arctic Monkeys, Radiohead and Kings of Leon left concerns that festival organisers were finally bowing to the pressures of mainstream music and moving away from their more rockier roots!
Friday saw the start of the scheduled music and with the absence of flags, the areas seemed all together flatter places. Some say it’s because they obstruct the view, others say it’s health and safety gone mad – personally I think it’s more about the TV rights. Either way, it made finding people a lot more difficult. The upside to the whole flag saga was seeing more of the bands, so when White Lies stepped out onto the NME stage we were all blown away together. Opening with ‘Farewell to the Fairground,’ their biggest record so far, the crowd were in for a roller coaster 45 minutes as the up-and-coming band shook the pegs clean out of ground of the biggest tent on the entire site! If this band doesn’t headline next year then I will eat my own words!
After watching an aging but brilliant Ian Brown it was time for the Arctic Monkeys to step up to the plate. All they had to do was play a few hits and get the crowd going. Instead they bombarded the audience with tracks from their new album, Humbug… I say bar humbug to that!
In all my years of going to music festivals I have never seen so much ‘posh’ food. ‘Posh Pizzas’, ‘Posh Burgers’, ‘Posh Sausages’ and my personal favourite, ‘Posh Fish and Chips’. If putting the word ‘posh’ in front of any traditional take away allows you to get away with charging ridiculously inflated prices, this years food operators had Leeds festival sewn up!
By Sunday it was becoming increasingly apparent how old I was. As a seasoned festival goer who isn’t afraid to get her sleeves rolled up I was surprised by the lack of twenty-something’s at the festival! I’d lost count of the number of Leavers – Class of 2009 hoodies I’d seen and neon face paint was now part of the norm. The arenas also appeared to have shrunk since I was last here and hordes of people where kept outside in the cold for acts such as Florence and the Machine and pop sensation Le Roux.
I decided to get over the age-gap thing and immersed myself in what was the last few bands of the festival. Leeds born Kaiser Chiefs never fail to disappoint and Kings of Leon were possibly the most highly anticipated act on the entire bill. They came over from America some time ago now and have been touring the UK and riding a well-earned wave of success. Tomorrow they will be flying home with their heads held high. Tonight they were in total control, with the crowd firmly in the palm of their hand. For me Leeds was all about Kings of Leon and after their performance it simply couldn’t have been about anyone else.
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