T - Day 1 (Part 1)

Right. It's been a while. Apologies. So, where were we? Ah yes - drunk and going to bed. Brilliant. We woke up not that much later to the sound of hundreds of still-drunk scotsfolk queuing in the mud to use the loos. Hurrah. It was also bloody hot, which was extremely exciting.

Breakfast happened.

Breakfast. And some muddy trainers. It tasted better than it looks here.

Sated, we made our way into the main arena, retreading the unpleasant muddy path we'd stumbled back up a small while before. Well, I did - Zanna had forgotten her wallet. Or her keys. Or something. Anyway, she trudged back to the tent, and I forged onwards, arriving at the main stage just in time to fall in love with the Saw Doctors.

I'd never come across them before, but they've been around for ages, and are the kind of band that makes you glad music was invented. A bunch of hairy middle-aged gits from Ireland, they sing songs called 'Never going to go on Bebo again' and 'To win just once' that make you want to ruffle their hair, buy them a beer and then drink whiskey with them 'til four in the morning. It's as if The Wonder Stuff had grown up, had children with Status Quo (but in a world where Francis Rossi isn't a twat) and those children had then grown up, got old, got grizzled and formed a band. A genuinely lovely start to the day.

As a quick aside, it's inevitable that some of the choices we made during the day are going to irritate people - as is always the way with festivals, there were clashes and occasions where Zanna and I wanted to see different people, and we'd made the decision not to split up. You may not always like the choices we made - hell, I didn't always like the choices we'd made - but it had to happen. Anyway...

The lovely old Irish chaps were followed by a trip to the Pet Sounds tent to check out Charlotte Hatherley. I've always had a soft spot for Ash (1977 is one of those albums that takes me back to almost a specific adolescent week) and so this was mostly a solidarity thing. I never really got the point of Charlotte when she was in Ash - it almost seemed to me to be more of a marketing thing than a musical one. (That said, everyone reading this knows what I do for a living, so perhaps I should just stop being a pompous arse...) She failed to set the world on fire, but was fairly pleasant in a 'girls-doing-it-on-their-own-if-you-like-your-pop-feminism-a-little-edgier-than-Spice' kind of way. And she still has extremely pretty eyes. That said, Zanna wasn't impressed, and if anyone's going to buy into that kind of tosh, it's her.:


It was then time for one of the best moments of the weekend - The Thrills on the NME Stage.

Don't laugh.

Listen to any of The Thrills' albums, and I promise you won't be disappointed - as long as you're expecting a middle-of-the-road Irish band that wants to be the Byrds, front by a singer with a quirkily attractive croaky voice, who sounds like he's always on the brink of tears. And proper tears, too, the kind leave you curled up on your own in the corner of the room, snot everywhere. Bless him.

I hate them for this - I really, really hate them. But only because they're so achingly good at festivals. Conor Deasy's voice, so reedy on record, becomes emotive and powerful in the middle of a field. Vaguely cuddly tracks like 'Don't Go Back To Big Sur' and 'Santa Cruz' take on a strength all of their own - they plead for you to love them, they need for you to love them, and somehow it works. It's like they're only truly comfortable when completely dwarfed by their surroundings - put them in a studio, or in an arena and they suddenly become painfully self-aware, and it just doesn't work.

But if you can see them at a festival, do - really do. As the first tempo change in Santa Cruz kicks in, Conor dances like a buffoon, and the sun breaks out from behind the clouds, then you'll be dancing like a buffoon too, and so will I. Just don't get over-excited and play their albums on the way home. That hurts.

So there we are. Three bands in. One perfectly lovely, the other two really quite special (albeit in a slightly odd way). The next band get their own post.

I'm in love.