T in the Park Review

SATURDAY:

The Saturday line-up for T in the Park was not the best I've seen. The White Stripes pulled out after Jack was in a car crash, and with T in the Park not even arsing themselves to find a replacement for Zwan (who pulled out weeks ago) let alone Jack and Meg, the laziness is clear. Yeah, it's obvious - they've got REM so why bother getting anything else? Twats.

In fact, not much appealed to me except The Cardigans and The Flaming Lips - although I figured there were worse things to check out than The Polyphonic Spree, John Squire and Idlewild. First up we popped by the NME stage to see aband called "Turbonegro" who are the shittiest band ever. Dodgy, Norweigan (I think) heavy rawk with a lead singer who thinks it's ace to show off his fat belly and dress like Alice Cooper. Utter pish, we leave after 2 songs.

Other new bands on the NME stage we managed to catch included The Snow Patrol (sound like Placebo) and Kings of Leon (shit). Having seen Nirvana wannabes Biffy Clyro inspire an exodus away from the NME stage last year with their "Gavin Rossdal inspired diet-grunge" I had to convince a mate of mine how shite they actually are, and after two songs he was convinced. THE worst band of the weekend, and with ginger (GINGER) members, this group needs taken behind the bike shed and put down. Utterly pisspoor.

Which brings us to The Proclaimers, which I watched with a friend of mine for a laugh (my other mates decided against it). Oddly enough, The Proccies got a HUGE audience of fellow Scots going daft for their shit-tastic numbers, which included "Letter from America" and "5000 Miles" back to back. Watching the enormous audience going nuts was worthwhile, but I still can't believe T in the Park booked them again.
Onwards to The Cardigans who are ACE, ACE, ACE. But whose set, comprised mostly from the heavenly "Long Gone Before Daylight", fell onto deaf ears in the crowd. But we all agreed they were great - and Nina is gorgeous beyond belief. Chris Martin - you're a fool. You can abuse your rock star ways in any manner now that you are famous and you choose Gwyn instead of a credible, talented, super sexy lady such as Nina. Easily my highlight of the day - and they do "My Favourite Game" which is clearly one of the best singles ever.

I then bolted from the Main Stage to the NME Stage just in time to see John Squire finishing off a solo (judging from the crowd's reaction he had just done a Roses song) and blast into "Made of Stone". Fuck the solo stuff (it sounded okay to my ears though), he does "Fools Gold"!!!! And "How do you Sleep"!!!! And "Tightrope"!!!! What more do you want? OK, so it's a bit like dodgy karoake, but the guitar solos are nicely reproduced and it's fun all the same. But the neds are out in abundance, and the beers cans are being thrown in the air throughout. Dicks.

Back to the main stage for Idlewild, who put in a fantastic set, and then to The Flaming Lips. According to NME they were the highlight. Ask anyone who was there and they'll tell you that the Lips chugged through only 8 fucking songs whilst bantering, fucking about and generally just dicking around during the remainder of the time. They cover Seven Nation Army (the 9th song, if you can call their Gawdawful rendition a song) and come on in red and white. They spend most of the gig chatting to the audience about Jack White and getting them to sing along to repeated, ad nauseam, lines from their songs. They don't seem to grasp that we're not here for a fucking pantomine. Utterly disappointing, fucking embarassing - what a waste of a great band. Nina from The Cardigans watching on from the side provides much more entertainment than anything on stage...

Deciding against REM, I instead check out the Polyphonics - who are fab - and The Music. Sadly, the neds are back for The Music and pass the time by throwing stuff at Robert. He eventually takes a plastic bottle of the head and manages to say little more than "oh go away" with a comical, unintentional, feminine hand gesture. But, his dancing is so crap it's great and he slags off the NME review of them Glastonbury and, Goddamn, they actually have some pretty fine tunes. So all in all I'm glad I opted for them. "The People" sounds especially rocking.

SUNDAY:

Shit, I've got a cold by now and not feeling too hot. But that aint gonna stop me oggling The Sugababes. Man, two of these gals are HOT - but aside from the wolf whistles being sent their way there is no denying the pop perfection of the tunes either. "Freak Like Me" is my song of the weekend and they pull off a great performance. But I'd still probably take Nina from The Cardigans...

Next up is a jaunt to the NME stage for The Inspiral Carpets. Hey, when the alternative is The Coral with their one good song (and yes I've got the album and, no, there isn't anything on it to be excited about other than "Dreaming of You"). The neds are really in force for these guys so we stay to the side. The lead singer is fat and ugly and a real eyesore, but they play "She Comes in the Fall" and "This is how it Feels" which are great. But they also play some of their shittier hits too. I also hear Appleton doing "Fantasy" while queing for the loo, and it sounded as polished and crap as you'd imagine.

Which leads to a trip back to the main stage for Supergrass, who put in a brilliant set. They even do "Alright". With not much else on afterwards, we walk into the dance tent to laugh at the morons throwing their hands in the air to Royyskopp, and take pictures of ourselves lying next to someone who has passed out. We also try to get a picture up a lying female sunbathers skirt (complete with our mugging faces - and seeing as how my one time girlfriend was with us and thought it hilarious I will happily rebout any accusations of sexism. We spent the whole morning thinking up porno film titles for Godssake) but she catches on a second too quickly. Oh well, would've been funny...

And so comes the highlight of the weekend (neds aside) - a full hour set from The Charlatans, who do two new songs, and a greatest hits package with "Love is the Key", "The Only one I Know", "One to Another", "How High" etc etc It's great.

I then bolt from the main stage to avoid Coldplay and instead just walk about the site, take in a track from Death in Vegas, watch a track from The Rapture, and chat to my now heavily intoxicated best friend who didn't want to see Coldplay either. We meet the others at 10.30 who agree Chris Martin is indeed overly serious - and catching them (from a distance mind) for "In my Place" and "Clock" can only end the weekend on a downer. They are as dull live as they are on the TV and we all speak about why the hell someone as pig-ugly as Chris Martin now has a Hollywood honey on his arm. Puzzling... just like this year's T in the Park. Not much in the way of alternatives to the main acts, and some really lazy booking.

Anyone else there?