albums

Calculating Infinity, Miss Machine, Hidden World, You Fail Me, No Heroes, f# a# oo, Yanqui U.X.O, Turn on the Bright Lights, Antics, Clarity, I Was Born at Night, Wonderful Rainbow, Madonna, Those Who Tell the Truth..., Amnesiac, Kid A, Spiderland, Boxer, Daydream Nation.

6 best songs and 1 instrumental

these are my favourite songs ever/now; (in no order)

1.Interpol - PDA
2.Meneguar - House of Cats
3.The National - All the Wine
4...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - Mark David Chapman
5.Wolf Parade - I'll Believe in Anything
6.Fucked Up - Crusades

and

1.Explosions in the Sky - The Moon is Down

fucked

doomed. we're all fucking doomed
sometimes its really hard to really see a point, to it all. I exist sure but i'm only going to stop, one day. and so is every fucking person I care about. How do you cope with it? what's the fucking point? Me and everyone who's good is only going to die anyway and then that's it. it's all over. So what really is the point? I know life's a gift but I just don't wanna go through the pain. Maybe its what I need if I'm ever gonna learn.
we all fucked.

its on again

death seems pretty optional 'til
its a heartache and a room getting smaller
and there's little else to grasp on
and everything hurts

but maybe its the only way you'll
be able to ever cope again
and grow and carry on living
(grow and carry on)

and I knew I wasn't over this
every night its the same I think
the same thoughts every night.
Those ones that scare me to death

and somehow its worse with you,
when I think about how one day
one of us we'll be gone and the
suffering will start again

I know i'm told that I worry way too much
and that this is the sad reality
but I still can't put it out of my mind
and I can't say how I'll feel when I
finally lose someone I love.
Until then I'll wait and believe that
death doesn't effect me;
as scary as that is.

T in the Park

So this weekend I went to the country's second biggest yet strangely under appreciated festival T in the Park in Balado, Kinross, Scotland. For those who don't know, it as a festival sits just in between Glastonbury and Reading/Leeds in line up choices, and to be fair the whole scale of the affair was quite something (choices of 3 or 4 big headliners on the Saturday and Sunday is pretty impressive with; Rage Against the Machine, Kaiser Chiefs, Ian Brown and Interpol one night and R.E.M, the Prodigy and Primal Scream the other).

Sadly the event has been slightly marred by the death of one 32 year old man of "illness" (we presume alcohol poisoning) and another who was brutally stabbed but seems to be making progress; our best wishes go out to him and his family. This is pretty sad because, despite the facade of getting into the festival grounds on Friday morning, this was one of the best organised and most pleasant festival experiences I've had (literally pissed all over Reading/Leeds for comfort and atmosphere and people not being wankers).

Anyway all this aside here was my experience of the festival and the awesome amount of diversity going on:

Friday: Not a lot happening on this half day, it took a couple hours to fight our way in and to top it off no one of interest in performing til 11 o'clock. Wondered around a bit, began weekend drinking, usual crack. Chemical Brothers kick proverbial ass with their set, and the Futureheads are also great but perhaps deserve a bigger crowd.

Saturday: Long wait til the festival really gets going, and my does it when it huts. But until 4pm we still have to wait for the first band of interest, Lightspeed Champion. Toilets are getting grim but I can't help wonder how good natured everyone is being about it all. Lightspeed put on a very good performance to kick off the festival for me (8/10) with a girl drummer who is both hot and ridiculously good at drums. WIN. Shame the same can't be said for Biffy Clyro whom have officially lost their way. One hoped a homecoming show would mean a greater choice of songs but they still opted for new songs and not only that, badly played new songs (3/10). The Hold Steady gets things moving again nicely though with their Tom Petty/Bruce Springsteen branded alt-rock, mostly by having a fantastic sound (7/10). MGMT unfortunately turns out to be one of the more annoying performances as the relatively small Pet Sounds tent is filled with radio 1 listening idiots for their one and only visit to that tent. The band themselves are OK but also kinda over zealous on the prog-rock and using back-tracks for the "hits" (5/10). So, everyone predictably empties out and thus missing one of the performances of the weekend in Band of Horses, whom have a fantastic sound and tight performance but one of the more endearing acts of the weekend (8/10). Call me biased but Fucked Up are the best band in the world right now. After convincing the rest of my group to go see them luckily they didn't let me down. In fact, this may have been their best yet for me and they ripped through 7 songs in 35 minutes with ear splitting volume and as usual a fantastically tight performance. The band aren't a bit disheartened by the mostly empty tent they play to (about 50 people at the most) and in fact use it to their advantage by playing in the little crowd that were there. awesome (10/10). After 15 minutes of Rage Against the Machine I gave up when they played a disgracefully slow version of 'Bombtrack' and left the old has-beens to it to see Interpol play probably one of their most intimate sets for quite sometime. I bumped into the drummer of Fucked Up on my way and freaked him out a little by remembering his name from a previous chat in Leeds a few months back; he was as charming as ever though. Interpol was an odd one, seeing as no-one seemed to hype them up too much this time, which was probably a good thing because it gave people a chance to be surprised as they went for a mostly singles based set but from equal tracks from every album. I knew it was worth leaving Rage though when they closed on a terrifying version of 'Roland' (8/10).

Sunday: Much busier day today, kicking off with My Morning Jacket who were, good but not great as they went for a mostly new album oriented set (6/10). Battles were great but let down by a poor sound that seemed insistent on not letting John Stainer's always incredible drumming be heard. Weird scenes when some of the crowd treated 'Atlas' as a lad rock sing-along, but 'Tonto' and 'Race:In' were out of worldly (7/10). Unfortunately had to miss British Sea Power in favour of Battles, but next up on the Kings Tut stage were Vampire Weekend who in a slightly bigger tent than MGMT the day before manage to fill with complete idiots too. Weekend's set was solid with pretty much the best of their debut being played and played well, but, they felt miles away and well over three quarters of the crowd were only paying attention when 'a-punk' was on, and even then they struggled (7/10). Luckily for us, Yeasayer went on an hour late meaning they didn't clash with their New York Afro-beat rivals and, were completely necessary after the drudgery of people at Weekend. Yeasayer give the other punk rock performance of the weekend and destroy the small Futures Tent without even trying or being hindered by the poor turn-out. By complete contrast of what had just happened, they played a passionate and energetic set which, due to the use of electronic instruments in their live performance, reminded me alot of Animal Collective. Not what I was expecting, but fantastically executed (9/10). Then the day flew out of proportion for a while; perhaps it was the copious amounts of cider but Justice in the dance tent followed by the National was by far the greatest moment of the weekend. Justice literally blew people away kicking open their set with album opener 'Genesis', the cross illuminating in gold as the music blasts through their 18 Marshall cabs and ripping through such fantastic songs as 'D.A.N.C.E' and 'DNVO' (10/10). The walk from that tent to Pet Sounds was one of hyperactivity as the pue hysteria that just took place sank in as we left a very dark tent out into the open air; jumping over many obstacles of drugged up guys and girls to get through. When we arrived at The National, they'd just began 'Start a War' a crux in their set for sometime now and from there just took off. The National just gave what every other guitar based rock band of the weekend couldn't; brilliantly executed songs, a massive almost orchestral sound, and a really exciting energy and connection between all the players involved (8 in total) that was almost scary to watch. Here The National challenged perceptions and their peers whom were also in attendance (Interpol, R.E.M) and thus took the festival to a special place even if for just 50 minutes (10/10). By contrast of what had just prevailed, Kings of Leon and Holy Fuck both seemed a bit cagey by comparison; both were good, and perhaps if both on the previous day could have left more of an impression, but neither could keep up to the standard or how high the bar had just been raised by two pretty similar acts. All that was left then was for R.E.M to close the festival; a choice that had us debating into the early hours with the conclusion that, perhaps they weren't the best choice if you wanted a band with a huge supply of "bigger songs" to close the festival, but that you couldn't fault them for their performance or really their pretty varied set choice. Yes all but 'Everybody Hurts' were there as far as big singles go (although they didn't look massively bothered about playing them) and yes, newer material had to feature; there is an album to push after all. But that took up approximately half the set, leaving the rest to be old gems that perhaps would have been better placed at an actual R.E.M gig rather than a main stage festival appearance; but that is who R.E.M are and at least they still gave most of the fans what they wanted so it wasn't like it was an entirely selfish show, more of an agreement between the band and the audience to allow balance and thus keeping the integrities of both parties (8/10).

Phew. So that was my T in the Park experience. Conclusions would be; MGMT and Vampire Weekend and inexplicably over hyped and leaves the question of "why them and not the national or yeasayer?", there was something for everyone to enjoy and at least by having both acts like Battles and Amy Winehouse it kept unsavoury types separated and finally that, going to festivals that are so nice and well behaved it's a little bit unnerving; particularly when you consider the size of the thing. Will I go again next year? depends on the line-up, however if it continues to be one as varied as this year and as pleasant, I don't see why not.