T in the Park 2002 (artist's impression)
| T in the Park, 7-8th July 2001, Babado by Kinross |
T in the Park 2002 (artist's impression) |
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So, freshly showered and disinfected, we make
our way to Kinross again. A bit of a long lie following the late
night means the first act we encounter is Yessa
de Paso in the Secret Tent, and they're on the form
that saw them easily win through their Dundee T-break heat. The
set is still engaging - at one point Stuart wanders offstage
to find a capo, so the band simply start without him. The sound
is oh-so-quiet, but miraculously the audience adopts a reverential
silence. Annoyingly we miss the start of the set due to messed-up
running orders again (when will organisers of festivals realise
that late starts are an occupational hazard, but early ones can
screw up the dedicated festival goer's schedule completely!) Anyhow, "Cargo Bay" and "Snowman" are simply great, as ever, while "Sharpen the Knives" has to be one of the quietest and possibly most suicidal-sounding songs ever. Praise indeed. |
| The Talent Tent organisers have
taken care to provide a mix of acts over the weekend - and the
contrast must have been noted by the revelers chilling out at
the back during Yessa's set. Degrassi
are on next, you see, and their opening "1-2-3-4!!!"
sends a few scurrying to the relative peace of the Slam Tent.
The band are on form - it's their mission to entertain and deafen
simultaneously, and they achieve this with a combination of BIG
guitars and jerky stop-start rhythms, plus shouting. Lots of
it. Oh, those rhythms - they're probably more punk-metal than
math and are ideal for blowing away the cobwebs of the previous
day. But we're back on that perpetual conveyer belt that carries us from stage to stage. Next stop is King Tut's Wah Wah Tent where Snow Patrol seem to have got most of the weekend's attendees watching them. A far cry from sparsely-attended gigs in Edinburgh a few years ago, there's a sea of fans (or potential fans) out there and the band don't miss their chance, playing a great set which has arms waving, lighters, the lot. Yikes. They surprisingly play a load of old stuff such as "Absolute Gravity" and even wheel on Cut le Roc at one point, almost as if this is the end of some sort of passage in their careers. Gary Lightbody confirms the ill-kept secret that the band will leave Jeepster by 'dedicating' a song to the label. If the number of people that applaud the closing "Starfighter Pilot" had actually bought the thing then things might have been more harmonious at home. |
 |
 Danger! Lapsus Linguae at work |
Decision time. Toploader or Lapsus
Linguae? After disowning friends and family I head
for the T-break stage again, where the goth-classico black metallists
are wowing the audience. Sorry, that should read frightening
the audience. But naturelment - this is Lapsus Linguae! They
growl at their fans! They fight onstage! They mutter "I
don't approve of dancing" when some exuberant lassies -
who frankly, look like they've stumbled in there by mistake -
start some jigging down the front. Thankfully, though perhaps
surprisingly, they don't eat cameras, though the images here
can only begin to illustrate the Lapsus live experience (keyboardist
decides he wants to play bass next - halfway through song; guitarist
and bassist collide, guitarist somehow keeps playing, note perfect,
as he hits the deck). Of course, the music is brilliant too though
on this occasion, a little incidental, but get their 6-track
album when it comes out on Fierce Panda. Then come and see
them again for preview of how the main stage at next years T
will look (well, in my head, if not yours). Time for a liedown. Oh, Arab Strap are at King Tut's tent, so we can hold off for a bit. Again, a good attendance for what's still a fairly underground band. The sound is pretty great, a far cry from the days when a gig at King Tut's itself would rely largely on Aidan Moffat's, er, 'charisma' to carry it off and more often than not descend into drunken chaos. Aidan's quite subdued, though at one point remarking "we've just done a world tour, and I can honestly say that the best place ever is..." rock'n'roll cliche? - "...Madrid". Nowadays their sound fills the auditorium - ok, how many words for 'tent' does your thesaurus have? - Malcolm's guitar augmented by carefully-selected keyboards and the whole feel - including the kitchen sink and the sonic cathedral - is at once impressive and oppressive as those near the front are almst blown away by the intensity of the Strap's sound. |
 And at play... |
Other duties mean that we only see one number
from Risingson, who bill themselves
as Trip Hop Rock. They may have missed the 'punk' out of that
description, since singer Rich is sporting a natty line in ripped
t-shirt-wear, but the ROCK is in capital letters for sure, the
band being almost unrecognisabe from a year ago with a very loud'n'heavy
sound, their trademark scratching almost inaudible above the
wall of noise. It's all big names from here on in - and that means into the hell that is the main arena and its mud-sliding bottle-chucking clientele. Coldplay do what they do best i.e. keeping people away from the Alabama 3. They try out some new material but such is the magnitude of their popularity that they could have run through some Throbbing Gristle covers and got away with it. The sound again isn't perfect - the wind seems to affect both rock bands and acoustic ballady stuff - but this doesn't matter to the holidaymaker set in the audience. |
 It's not clear whether Chris and the
boys high-tailed it down to Stage 2 after their set, but Grandaddy were going down a storm there.
Their live act now sounds much more polished than before and
while the purists might prefer the slightly dodgy performances
of yore, they would have been heartened by the appearance of
such oldies as "Nonphenomenal Lineage" mixed in with
the likes of "Hewlett's Daughter" and "Crystal Lake".One thing made quite clear to me was that come rain or high mud, we would be watching Beck for the entirety of his set. Things could be a lot worse of course (pity those who marry Toploader fans, or indeed don't have this fact disclosed to them until after the wedding night). The wee ginger fella was on top form as usual, the only criticism possibly being that it was much the same set as at Glasgow Green, including the closing sticky-tape shenanigans. Before that, however, fun aplenty, with the usual suspects - "New Pollution", "Sissyneck", "Loser" and a quick blast of "Happy Birthday" (complete with cake) for the man himself. It's been widely publicised that this is his last show here with this band - it much be pretty expensive to pay them all, never mind the undoubted damage to the stages they play on - and it seems he's going for broke, even more than before, with the usual gymnastics (his trousers thankfully staying intact after a perfect splits). An encore of "Devil's Haircut" and apart from the obligatory antics - cricket pads, artificial limbs and assorted industrial clothing all donned - it's over. A zimmer frame crash-lands centre stage and he's gone, back to whatever planet he arrived from. A helpful announcer tells us that both Slam and Stage 2's are full and we should really just stay put and wait for Texas. Ignoring this doubtless well-intentioned advice, we're able to see 3 tiny figures from the back of a tent. One may be playing a Flying V, in which case it is either Ash or a set of dopplegangers. They do "World Domination", rather well, as it happens, and they're off. Which would be rather an anti-climax. The Reindeer Section should be just finishing up, so we go into the Cafe Tent with low expectations. A pleasant surprise then as they are just arriving onstage - this incarnation of the 'collective' featuring Snow Patrollers and lads out of Astrid. They explain that their tardiness is due to being "completely wasted" - his words I think - and they set about their set with the kind of dexterity that would make early Pistols gigs look like Wall-era Pink Floyd. Thankfully this is all about songwriting - evinced perhaps by the amount of record company people down at the front making out blank cheques to 'G. Lightbody'. Following the opening "Will You Please Be There for Me" it's a succession of big and not-so-big guests that queue up to sing and play a variety of instruments. Fitting perhaps that after a weekend spent largely in the Talent Tent, the Cafe helps answer any Where Are They Now questions from previous years. |
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