Don't Believe the Hype - A Splendour Review [Part 3]

Ben Lee poisoned me.

Woah! I have been waylaid for a week and a half. I got a vicious infectious disease, probably caused by Ben Lee. I think it was he who snuck into my tent at Splendour and infected me with a strain of H5N1, commonly known as Avian Flu. It has prevented me from finishing my Splendour review. My immune system has finally kicked into gear and I have emerged victorious. Now, without further ado....I bring you the final chapter in the trilogy, Splendour in the Grass, Part 3.

Day Three

I wake up with a feeling akin to a hangover. This is strange because I didn’t drink the day before. Perhaps Ben Lee snuck into my tent and poisoned me during the night. Feeling a bit of an outsider at the festival so I decide to attempt to fit in. I don an Australian flag as a cape, a pair of Ray Bans, a wife-beater, and a giant sombrero. Back to the amphitheatre.

I’d never expect to see a boy and bear on stage together, but Splendour is all about surprises and that’s exactly what we get when Boy & Bear emerge on to the main stage. Have you ever seen a full grown bear do a Kirk Hammett-esque guitar solo before throwing himself into a crowd of folk music loving music fans who fail to catch him and result in a horrendous shoulder injury? Well, I now have. This unfortunate event cut short the set. Indeed, boy looks a bit lost without his bear.

What is funny about Cloud Control is that in addition to playing instruments, they're also a group of traveling meteorologists with a social conscious. They play a bunch of songs from their debut record Bliss Release including the hit single “There is Nothing in the Water That We Can’t Fight” which is actually protest song regarding government proposals to put fluoride in our water supplies. A person dressed up as a large tooth complete with cowboy hat joins the band on stage and does some kind of rap, followed by a slow break dance. Presumably this is some sort of public health announcement.


When Cloud Control are not playing festivals, they're predicting weather.

A crowd gathers around the front of stage eagerly awaiting the imminent return of We Are Scientists to Australia. Several men in black roll out laboratory tables and a giant periodic table. Three guys in lab coats emerge sans instruments, instead carrying centrifuges. They perform a number of experiments, including mixing magnesium with oxygen to produce magnesium oxide. It’s all pretty exciting and I felt like I really learned something. Not all agree, going by the amount of beer cans that are thrown at the stage.

Ash used to have a super hot chick in the band. But she left to pursue a solo career. Still they have some great songs like ‘Kung Fu’ and ‘A Life Less Ordinary’. Now they’re getting a bit old and fat and the drummer looks like Adam Spencer. Still their rousing rendition of ‘A Life Less Ordinary’ pleases the gathered crowd of fashion victims from the late 1990s.

The Vines are crap. Someone hurls a wheelchair at Craig Nicholls, which he narrowly avoids. It skittles along the stage floor, crashing into the drumkit, ruining a kick drum on the way. The band regretfully have to finish ‘Highly Evolved’ without drums before trudging off the stage.

Mumford and Sons play to a massive crowd of people who love a second rate Fleet Foxes. However, they do love a good banjo. It seems that Mumford and Sons are only popular here in Australia given that they’ve been here about 50 times in the last 6 months. They are joined on stage by another hack that seems only popular in Australia. Ben Harper comes out to play a twenty-minute banjo solo during 'Little Lion Man', failing to notice the rest of the band packing up 5 minutes into his cameo. Somehow this song segues into a rousing version of 'Mama's Trippin' and I think I saw a guy in dreadlocks get an erection. Ben comes to at the end of the song, realising that everyone has left the main stage and promptly starts crying. It's a touching moment and I feel like I want to kill myself.

Richard Ashcroft is a megalomaniac. He beings with a rendition of the Verve’s ballad ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ clearly sending a message that his usual dosage of prescription medicines are failing to prevent him overcoming his natural inclination to wankery. Reacting negatively to a few missiles thrown in his direction, Ashcroft hurls himself off the stage into the crowd screaming ‘I’ll take you all on!’, arms flailing like a crazed dervish. Security guards prevent the ‘superstar’ from hurting anyone, demanding he return to the stage. Ashcroft seems perturbed, refusing to perform anymore, stating he’d rather go see the Pixies.

Often, it is puzzling how one song can define one bands career. Empire of the Sun actually only have one song – 'Walking on a Dream' - which sounds like it has been ripped off Boy Meets Girl 80s song ‘Waiting For a Star to Fall’. Luke Steele arrives on the stage dressed as giant flamingo. This costume is so outrageously large, he cannot fit on the stage without some emergency modifications to his costume. They play a 45 minute version of ‘Walking on a Dream’ before leaving to a rapturous applause. They return for an encore, in which they play ‘Walking on a Dream’ once again.


Black Francis has let himself go.

It’s getting late and Pixies are the final band to grace the main Splendour stage.Once the band that was worth a lot of indie street cred, this is the group's second visit to Australia in 2010 since the GFC destroyed their superannuation in 2009. Frank Black sit up behind the rest of the band, Jabba the Hut style, lying back on a throne, playing guitar and eating weird chicken like animals sourced from the depths of Tatoonie. Joey Santiago resembles a reanimated corpse, while Dave Lovering could actually be using a modified version of Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair as his drum kit. Still, they play a bunch of songs that are pretty awesome. However, the best is yet to come.

During ‘Where is My Mind’, spectators are shocked when a drunken Tim Roger’s charges on to stage and tackles Kim Deal, sending her prosthetic leg flying into the crowd. ‘Where is my Mind’ inevitably becomes ‘Where is My Leg?’, and the entire crowd is forced to search amongst the slew of rubbish that has gathered over the past few days for Kim’s missing appendage.

Pixies wind down what has been a thoroughly bizarre three days. I spend 10 hours in traffic on my way back to Brisbane.

Don't Believe the Hype - A Splendour Review [Part 2]

Penfold Krackerbarral continues to bring you the real events that made up 2010's Splendour in the Grass festival. If you missed yesterday's madness, you can read it by clicking here.

SATURDAY
After the awesomeness of yesterday, I wake at the suitable time of 12 noon and roll out of my tent to see that someone has used the side of my tent as a urinal during the night. As the waft of urine makes its way through my nasal passage, I raise my fist to the sky and curse Ben Harper’s name. I know he probably didn’t do it, but still, I feel justified in blaming him. I take a belt of whiskey from my hip flask and set off towards the stages once again.

I wander past the Triple J enclosure. I note the Doctor parading around in a three-piece suit interviewing celebrities. I liked this guy better when he was in Frenzal Rhomb.

McFly are playing a set. An hour long set. Who in the hell invited these pituitary retards to this ‘music’ festival? I note one Rio Lobotomy follows their set, and I pray to almighty Jesus that this is some kind of live brain removal operation on the members of McFly. Failing that, I think I might have to get one if I am forced to sit through a McFly set.

Thankfully, I’m not, and exercising my rational judgement chooses to go see the latest flash in the pan, Two Door Cinema Club. These guys are from Northern Ireland, and when not making music that features a bit too much keyboards, they’re thinking up snazzy band names like the aforementioned ‘Two Door Cinema Club’ or ‘Four Door Electric Hatchback’ or ‘Eight Legged Mechanical Esky’. They play a song called ‘I Can Talk’ which is funny because they cannot sing, nor play instruments. Perhaps that's the only thing they can do?


The Philadelphia Grand Jury take their jobs very seriously.

Philadelphia Grand Jury arrive on the amphitheatre. This time they’ve brought the entire bench of the Philadelphia Supreme Court, and instead of playing their hit songs which are ever so popular, they decide to court-marshal Julia Stone live on stage, charging her with manslaughter over the “accidental” shooting death of Andrew Stockdale from the previous day. She gets off lightly, sentenced to 100 hours of community service and a mandatory “emu parade” at the end of the festival. Philadelphia Grand Jury are harsh…but fair.

Lunchtime again. Today I opt for the Dagwood dog, which only costs me $20 plus my first-born child. I laugh inwardly – don’t those carnie merchants know that Ben Harper’s music has rendered me sterile? The joke is on them.

Tame Impala are here to wow the crowd with their psychedelia. Halfway through ‘Lucidity’, I have a lucid moment combined with an existential crisis Why did I come to this festival? Am I simply dreaming? Why don’t I look more like Leonardo diCaprio? My mind wanders for what seems like 16 weeks but is actually only about 2 seconds. Still, I can’t really remember how the Tame Impala ended. Weird.

Wolfmother had to cancel. Understandable considering their bandleader was killed the previous day. Instead, the organisers opt to put on a Black Sabbath record and everyone seems pleased.

Well, well well. Guess who is next - yup! It's Art V Science. These guys have a song called ‘Parlez Vous Francais’, probably one of the most annoying songs ever created. You can imagine some French band getting huge in France by simply singing a song in English that goes ‘Do You Speak English?”. It sounds pretty stupid to us, doesn’t it?

It always strikes me as humourous asking someone if they speak French…in French…I mean, it just won’t work out if they don’t, will it? Really they should be asking ‘Do you speak just enough French to realise that I’m asking you if you understand what I’m saying?” Anyway, Art V Science finishes with yet again no conclusive evidence as to which discipline has triumphed over the other.


Florence + the Machine want this dog TO DIE!!!

Florence + the Machine is some kind of equation. I do notice bad algebra when I see it – where is the resultant expression? Let me solve it for you. Florence + the Machine = shithouse. They play a song about how the dog’s days are numbered or over or something, which is presumably about euthanizing dogs. Get the RSPCA on the line! Not only are they pro-killing canines, but also they have the audacity to write popular music about it.

Band of Horses are a misnomer. I arrive at the GW McLennan stage expectant to see this group of talented equines, but it turns out that they are actually humans. No horse can be seen anywhere. I’m pretty peeved and find it hard to concentrate. When I pay $500 to see a band of talented horses, I expect a fucking band of horses! At least wear some kind of horse head costume! Even a camel suit like in Jonathan Richman’s 'Egyptian Reggae' clip would have sufficed.

More Camel Needed from Band of Horses

Julian Casablancas has the coolest name in the history of names. His band, the Strokes, play popular garage rock music, the type of music that spawned such awesome groups as Jet. During the middle of ‘New York City Cop’s Julian dives horizontally across the stage, Raiden-from- Mortal-Kombat style, and giving Albert Hammond Jr a fatality. Apparently they haven’t been getting along that well lately. The set ends abruptly and people return to their tents to scratch their heads over the antics they had seen this day.

Come back tomorrow for details of the final day! It will be gangbusters!

Don't Believe the Hype - Splendour in the Grass: A Review?

Hola! I'm Penfold Krackerbarral and I went to Splendour in the Grass. I've packaged together some of my thoughts for Daz's benefit.

Thursday
I arrive at my campsite late on Thursday night and pitch my one-man tent. I’m crammed up against the male toilets next to a group of people who’ve been sitting around drinking beer for most of the day. They’re busy telling each other about how much more superior their musical taste than the average festival punter. I do end up confused because despite such claims, many in this aforementioned group feel compelled to state repeatedly how much they’re looking forward to watching Mumford & Sons the next day. To tell you the truth, I’d prefer watching Garry MacDonald and Ruth Cracknell do a 45 minute enactment of the best of ‘Mother & Son’ on the main Splendour stage than catch the aforementioned winners of the Triple J’s “hottest 100” of 2009. I roll my eyes and return to the safety of my fortress of solitude. I’m a tired mofo.


Mother & Son - far superior to Mumford & Sons

You see, I left Brisbane 12 hours earlier; arrived at the grounds an hour later, then spent 11 hours in a holding queue. I almost died of thirst, but was lucky enough to have enough distilled urine to prolong my feeble existence, a trick I learned from the ever-helpful ‘Man v Wild’ television series.

Friday – Day One

I’m up at the crack of dawn. I’m not missing Jinja Safari for the world. These guys won some competition presided over by Richard Kingsmill, future leader of North Korea. Ironically, despite being the first band on the bill, Jinja Safari is probably the best of the entire festival. It’s a shame that not many people are here to see them.

I stick around to see local grunge band Violent Soho sans Thurston Moore. They have a song about Jesus stealing girlfriends, which is historically inaccurate at least in a literal sense. They pretty much rock the fuck out and rip a few bottoms apart here and there.

British India play a set typical of a band who admire colonialism. Included in the setlist is an anti-Gandhi anthem, another song about bringing civilisation to the savages and a folk-esque tune that looks into the fiscal benefits of exploiting the third world. Actually, all of that might not be true, as I cannot remember any of their set because I fell asleep.

Megan Washington looks like an attractive female Beatle, judging by her haircut. She plays some songs and does a great Abby Dobson impression; everyone is holding hands and slapping each other on the back. ‘Yeah, we’re cool!’

I take a break for lunch, and spend $40 on a hotdog. It cost me $10 for some bbq sauce as well. Good value for money. It’s fortunate that I budgeted $5,000 to attend this festival. Who needs two kidneys anyway?

I return to the GW McLennan tent to catch Midlake. They emerge from stage left dressed as 19th century American puritans, pitchforks in hand. They don’t actually play guitars, instead opting to shovel hay for 45 minutes. Still, their set is more enjoyable than Angus and Julia Stone.

Angus has been getting around in a beard of late, attempting to look like Devendra Banhart. Julia gets in on the act, playing their entire set with a large bushranger-style beard. During ‘Mango Tree’, Julia dons a Ned Kelly style metal helmet, a long brown jacket, completing her outfit with two holstered pistols. Near the end of the set, she leaves her piano and ambles towards the side of stage, firing two shots into celebrity onlookers, mortally wounding Andrew Stockdale from Wolfmother. The crowd rejoices at this development, but joy soon turns to melancholy, as Julia is taken away in shackles.


Police sketch artist depiction of a murderous Julia Stone approaching Andrew Stockdale

One of two horse themed bands here at Splendour, Foals attempt to engage the crowd by catapulting a horse carcass into the mosh pit. Screams of joy turn to screams of agony as a 900-pound horse crushes several Foals fans. This naturally puts a dampener on proceedings and the usually upbeat ‘Spanish Sahara’ takes on more somber tones.

The Temper Trap hit the main stage to play a bunch of songs they stole from U2 and now pass off as their own. Still, the crowd gathered round the main stages are excited. ‘Sweet Disposition’ goes down as expected, with the surprise appearance of the Edge, who parachutes from 20,000 feet and lands directly on to the main stage in order to operate guitarist Lorenzo Sillitto’s digital delay pedal.

It’s getting dark now and that means the vampires are out. Worryingly, I note several blood-drained corpses left willy-nilly in the mandatory festival recycle bins. I shake my head with a sense of disappointment: you can’t recycle that!


Bears are usually a OH&S nightmare, particularly at large Australian music festivals.

Grizzly Bear played a great set, mostly comprising of their work from 2009’s acclaimed record Veckatimist. To heighten audience suspense, the group let loose several untamed grizzlies, brought with them all the way from Alaska. Much like the Foals debacle earlier in the day, things don't go to plan, with several punters being mauled throughout the duration of the set. Lucky St. John’s Ambulance was on hand to issue band-aids and re-attach limbs. The set ends with a cracking version of ‘While You Wait for the Others’.

Ben Harper & the Restless 7 close out day one proceedings. You know what? I can hazard a guess as to why the Restless 7 are restless. It could be because they’re beginning to realise how crap it is being in a band with Ben Harper. I stay for about 10 minutes before wandering off to find some thalidomide. I must purge these memories.

Day one comes to a conclusion and I feel fortunate to be alive.

[To be continued]

Splendour, My Ass

Sweet bleeding Jesus. What a frustrating morning. Like about a billion other people, I attempted to buy Splendour in the Grass camping tickets from moshtix this morning. Despite getting to work early, logging into the site around 8am, from 8.30am onward I experienced constant drop outs. I’m jealous of the people that actually got to the ‘buy tickets’ screen – cause I never even got that far. Several times I got to about position 1,000 in the queue before receiving a server time out and booted back to the end of the queue. The above graphic was the screen I got greeted with time after time after time.

This is the first time I’ve attempted to buy Splendour tickets since about 2005. I think it’s the nail in the coffin for me. I don’t care about the line-up anymore, the whole setup is rancid. I realise that lots of people want to go, and systems are under great stress, but why are these problems consistent. It’s not exactly like the massive server load was unexpected? I’m annoyed that the queuing system seems fundamentally flawed. No wonder the moshtix facebook ‘fan’ page is filled with streams of abuse (though, I note strangely enough a lot of the abuse is 'disappearing') (*edit* they won't be able to sensor the Courier Mail's comment section though).



From now on, I'm sticking with worthwhile festivals like Golden Plains.

Sunset Sounds: Day 2

Many had been more impressed by the lineup for day two of Sunset Sounds. On face value, day two had more popular international acts, but I don’t think it was any more hugely superior to day one (which was quite good).

I arrived in time to see the start of locals Hungry Kids of Hungary, who were, once again, playing their great brand of 60s inspired indie rock. This band, in combination with a soothing mild ale, were a great way to kick off what was an incredible night.

I was very impressed by multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird's 2009 record “Noble Beast” and his inclusion on the bill was one of the main reasons for me going to Sunset Sounds. Turns out, I was not disappointed. While arguably it took a while for Mr Bird to get into the swing of things, by the time 'Anonanimal' gets introduced, we’re beginning to see the real musical genious behind Andrew Bird. Truthfully, he is a phenomenal musician.

I managed to catched melbournians Oh Mercy, whose debut album was a great little release. Despite the smallish crowd, I found their set enjoyable. While perhaps Alexander Gow needs to improve his crowd banter, their breezy pop music is perfect for the late afternoon heat. 'Seemed Like a Good Idea' and 'Get You Back' are highlights.

Wandering around the grounds, I heard Lisa Mitchell play a dire cover of Dire Strait’s “Romeo and Juliet”. I watched perhaps three songs of Yves Klien Blue’s set at the hibiscus stage and before the urge for nausea nearly overcame me. Look, I'm sorry, but I just cannot get anything from this band. When one song is described as being about “really good sex”, I decided I’d had enough.

While I could write a thesis on the Grizzly Bear set, I have to say it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. This is truly a special band. Excuse the melodrama, but this set induced some raging reflective emotions that have rarely appeared within my conscious during live music. I can’t describe it any better than this – it was overwhelmingly brilliant.

So I head over to Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Despite my dislike of the band and their songs (apart from the quite good A-Trak remix of “Heads Will Roll”), I decide to give them another chance. Perhaps it was a bit premature. Apart from the last ten minutes of the set, I didn’t enjoy any of it. Their music seems derivative, tired and is more about posteuring than anything artistic. Of course, coming from Grizzly Bear half hour before, anything was going to look poor by comparison.

Well, in summation, Sunset Sounds was fairly good. The highlights were Grizzly Bear, Andrew Bird, and Dappled Cities.

Of course, that’s just what I think. What did you think?

Fancy going to Victoria/Tasmania for New Years?

Well, the initial line up of the Falls Festival has been leaked, and there are some large names on the bill. Some names that might even encourage me to make the journey to either Lorne in Victoria or Tasmania for the second time.

Three great acts in the form of Grizzly Bear, Andrew Bird and Future of the Left are set to take the stage alongside other international artists such as the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs and Moby. There seems to be a fair few great Australian artists set to play including Lisa Mitchell and Philadelphia Grand Jury. Looking to be a great line up already!

You can have a sneak peak on the Falls Festival website.

The Ideal Splendour Line-up

As you may know, Splendour in the Grass 2009 line-up was announced today. Again, I’m fairly disappointed. Not that I can go anyway, since I’ll be boarding in New Zealand the dates that it is on. I can only see few bands I’d be interested in watching – Decoder Ring, The Flaming Lips and Friendly Fires (who I saw last year at Glastonbury and were awesome).

My tastes are definitely changing. I cannot say that Splendour is no longer the festival it what it was once upon a time. I think festivals like Merideth and Golden Plains are far superior, I think. Most probably due to the laid back attitude and the relative absence of complete wankers.

I’ve been to a few Splendours and I don’t think any will top the year Brian Wilson played. That was indeed super awesome.
Got me thinking, what would be my ideal festival line-up. Not an original idea for a blog post, but at least it is a fun one. Here’s what I’d have (assume for a second that the band is capable of getting back together is not currently active).

International Acts

GUIDED BY VOICES, THE MAGNETIC FIELDS, BELLE & SEBASTIAN, WILCO, THE FRAMES, DEERHUNTER, AT THE DRIVE IN, PORTISHEAD, CARIBOU, THE SHINS, PIXIES, BECK, NEKO CASE, JENS LEKMAN, SPOON, BORIS, TEENAGE FANCLUB, OF MONTREAL, PHOENIX, NADA SURF

Attempted to mix it up a bit there, unfortunately I don’t particularly like hip hop or dance music – if I was forced to add something from those genres I’d elect to have BEASTIE BOYS, JURASSIC 5, THE PRODIGY, MASSIVE ATTACK, THE RADIO DEPT.

As for Australian acts…. (this is a bit harder nowadays, I feel myself a bit too disconnected with Australian music at the moment, I get the feeling that falling behind what is coming out of the States/UK)

HUNGRY KIDS OF HUNGARY, DECODER RING, SCREAMFEEDER, REGURGIGTATOR, THE EXPLODERS, PHILADEPHIA GRAND JURY (man, these guys are fun), THE DRONES, EDDIE CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING, CLOUD CONTROL, THE ZEBRAS.

I’ll probably think of a whole lot more the fact, but in the meantime feel free to suggest some!

The Glastonbury '08 Report

Well, well. I’m well behind on my travel blogging, but I’ve decided to skip ahead and report some of the details of my recent adventure to the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Arts which I experienced for the first time during the past week.

Glasto has the reputation for being a muddy and patience-trying experience. Luckily for me and my partner in crime, J-Kay ‘Janderson’ Anderson, we were fortunate to experience nearly perfect weather. I’ll quickly give a run down to which performances I thought was good, OK, and not worth the hype. Please note that for some (most) of the days I missed some of the main bands due to being intoxicated or asleep!

The Good!
There were many really good acts. As usual, at least according to my festival theory, these acts were nearly all confined to the side stages. The pick of Friday was the simon-and-garfunkel-esque Vampire Weekend who put smiles on everyone’s faces with their afro-beat pop songs. You have to love a band you can dance too!



To my surprise, one of the other great acts of Glastonbury was gold coast locals Operator Please. I had always heard these guys on the radio back home and thought ‘argh, just another one of these gimmick bands’ but this was the first time I saw them perform, and I must say, I was hugely impressed. Also, their cover of Salt’n’Pepa’s ‘Push It’ has to go down as one of the best covers I’ve seen. Also, I had no idea that lead vocalist and guitarist Amandah Wilkinson had so much guitar credentials – she was busting out the riffs like there was no tomorrow.



Eventually coming out as my second favourite performance of the entire festival was Crowded House’s Saturday afternoon set. I knew all the word’s to most of their song, and there is nothing better than a giant crowd sing-a-long on a warm Saturday afternoon. Most of their obvious hits were played (they finished with my personal favourite ‘Four Season in One Day’) and a few newer Neil Finn numbers placed in between.



The Hoodoo Gurus played an early slot on Sunday at around noon. Much like the Crowded House set of the previous day, it was littered with old classics. Dave Faulkner did talk a lot of shite at times, but generally the set was enjoyable with the band members indulging in some rock and roll showmanship.

I randomly went and saw a UK band called Friendly Fires at the John Peel tent (coincidently, the tent closest to my campsite). They were enjoyable enough to warrant a place amongst my favourite sets of the festival. They had wisps of the cure mixed with a lot of electronic backing tracks, and reminded me in some ways of Australia’s own Seabellies, albeit with less members. Also, I think the guitarist might have thought he was Johnny Greenwood reincarnate, though clearly he wasn’t.

My pick of the festival was without a doubt Caribou. Playing a lot of songs off their great album ‘Andorra’, Daniel Snaith a co really showed an initially unsure crowd what it was like to mix 60’s-esque melodies with an dab of electronic beats and effects. ‘She’s the One’ was a festival highlight. I also loved their stage setup, with Snaith and his drummer setting up their separate drumkits directly opposite each other, so when they manically smashed their kits it looked like the were entangled in a drum battle of gargantuan proportions.

Spiritualized also played a great set at the John Peel Stage early on Sunday evening. Never listened to any of their music before, apart from the song 'Come Together', but I might have to check out some more of their tunes.

Much to my surprise, My Morning Jacket, who closed off the Park stage on the Sunday night, absolutely rocked. I have a few of their albums, and I always thought they were OK, but I had no idea that Jim James, their lead singer and guitarist, was such a rock god. They mixed rock and country music songs interchangeably, and jumped round the stage like men possessed. It was a delight to watch. Their drummer looks like Animal from the muppets, and indeed, drums like him as well.

I’m told on good authority by Janderson that Hot Chip were brilliant and ‘boyfriend material’. Unfortunately, I missed out due to being passed out drunk in my tent.

The Yeah-They-Were-OK.
I won’t go into much detail, but the Raconteurs were OK. John Mayer was OK (he can play some mighty fine guitar), The Kills would have been more enjoyable had their sound been better (I frequently noticed that the John Peel Stage had a really bad sound mix), Stars suffered from the same sound quality issues as the aforementioned Kills, and their lead singer’s choice of performance outfit left me feel slightly ill. I didn't really mind the sounds of The Rascals, who played a mixture of punk and surf music.

The Over-hyped and Awful.
Actually, I didn’t see many bands that were that awful. Some that I thought weren’t all that good were Canadian stoner rock group Black Mountain. Their 8 minute plus medleys were just drawn out and boring. Maybe I had to be ‘under the influence’ to appreciate, but I wasn’t, so therefore, I didn’t. The hyped up Crystal Castles probably were good. However, they only played for half an hour, despite having an hour set time, much to the extreme displeasure of the audience who rightly booed them off the stage. MGMT were also another band for which I couldn’t even been bothered to stand through their entire set for, such was the quality of their set. They didn’t look interested in playing at all, despite a full house at the John Peel stage. Furthermore, their songs were uninspired and bland. Don’t believe the hype. Janderson mentioned to me that by far the worst band she saw was the Brian Jonestown Massacre. I’m not surprised at all.

Well, that sums up what I thought was good and bad about the performances of certain acts at the festival. Overall, it was a good few days, though extremely tiring. Unsure if I will do it next year.